Diversity of nematode destroying fungi and Nematode Community in selected vegetable growing areas in Kenya

Abstract

Nematodes are a diverse group of microscopic worm like creatures. They provide essential ecological services that keep soil healthy. They are also parasitic to plants and cause economic damage to many plant crops. Chemical control of plant parasitic nematodes essentially involves the use of synthetic nematicides. However, apart from its very high cost; increased concern for the environment contamination has necessitated a reduction in the amount of nematicides used for nematode control. There has been an increase in the intensity for the search of efficient ecologically sound plant parasitic nematode management strategies. An environmental friendly management strategy that utilizes natural enemies to lower the population of pest has been employed on other agricultural pests. Likewise natural enemies of plant parasitic nematode can be used to control nematode pests. Nematode destroying fungi have received a lot of attention for development as biological control agent of plant parasitic nematodes. Unfortunately, there exist multidimensional drawbacks to the realization of the full potential of the nematode destroying fungi in the contest of plant parasitic nematodes. Unavailability of reliable methods to visualize the fungi and demonstrate their activity in their natural habitat is a major impediment. Consequently activity of the fungi in the soil has been inferential through the reduction in numbers of nematodes or reduction of their damage to plants. Unfortunately all factors affecting these groups of fungi have not been documented; some of the reported factors include soil condition, nematode species, rate of development and host plant. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of temperature on the population of nematode and nematode destroying fungi in selected vegetable growing areas in Kenya. Soil samples were collected from five areas