Effect of soil solarization on tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) growth and impact on native microbial diversity of farm soil in Nigeria

Abstract Background Tomato plant leaves can be wilted by the presence of various species soil-residing bacteria, especially Ralstonia solanacearum . Soil solarization has proven to an environment-friendly method for disease management in crops. Therefore, this study aimed evaluate as effective and non-chemical way control R. population farm soil cultivated with tomato plants. The variety UC 82 was raised on a nursery bedding 3 weeks, after which four solarization-based treatments were applied field plots where plants subsequently. Agronomic, pathological, temperature data recorded from samples, while isolation, Gram staining, morphological, biochemical, physicochemical analyses carried out same samples. Results bacterial identified pre-experiment included Enterobacter cloacae , Serratia marcescens Proteus mirabilis post-experiment Citrobacter freundii Klebsiella pneumoniae P. Salmonella sp., diversus Occurrences bacteria fungi populations solarized soils solanacearum, Aspergillus niger flavus Penicillium Rhizopus spp., Actinomycetes yeast. Conclusions results obtained showed that reduced native microbial since had lower occurrence than non-solarized soils. Thus, present suggests is reducing pathogenic