ABSTRACT:

Isolations on potato dextrose agar (PDA) showed that the following fungi were frequently associated with natural infected, wilted tomato plants in Umudike: Fusarium oxysporum, f.sp. lycopersici, F.sollani,, F.equiseti, F.acuminatur. Trichoderma viride, T.harzianum, Mucor hiemalis, Sclerotium rolfsil, Phoma lycopersici and Rhizopus microsporu Evaluation of 10 tomato cultivars for disease tolerance indicated that Fusarium wilt, incited by Fusarium oxysporum f.slycopersici, with an incidence of 80-100% and a severity index of 4.0-5.0 was the most important fungal disease. of the grown tomato in the area. Pathogencity tests, employing the direct soil inoculation technique, showed that only isolate of F-oxysporum f.sp. lycopersici induced wilting in all tomato cultivars evaluated.