Management of Watermelon Mosaic Virus Disease by Use of Leaf Extracts of Some Medicinal Plants

Accepted : August, 2009 The complexity of many virus diseases has led to the development of a large number of approaches for their control. The use of chemical insecticides at large scale has caused serious environmental problems. However, permanent elimination of any significant amount of broad spectrum synthetic pesticide also cannot be adopted. Thus new pesticides which can meet different standards, must be specific, non toxic to environment, less expensive and less prompt to the development of resistance by insects, pathogen etc. will have to be find out. This has led to the search of natural pesticides, which are likely to satisfy the above stated consideration. Many workers have investigated reduction in plant virus disease by application of several other methods and found increased yield. Griffing (1956) and Simons (1960) have studied effects of some insecticides and physical barrier method on the yield and spread of Pepper vein banding mosaic virus. The use of medicinal plants for the control of virus disease have been attempted by few workers for different plant virus disease on their host, but use of medicinal plant extracts for the management of watermelon mosaic virus has not been worked out so, far watermelon mosaic virus is most prominent causing mosaic disease of Pumpkin throughout country. The present investigation have been planned to see the effect of leaf extract of some medicinal plants on