International Conference on the Role of Universities in Hands-On Education

Rajamangala University of Technology Lanna, Chiang-Mai, Thailand 23-29 August 2009

HANDS-ON FARMER TRAINING : PRODUCTION AND USE OF

TRICHODERMA VIRENS FOR PLANT DISEASE CONTROL

Jinantana Jomduang1/* Tippawan Manond1/ Narawan Nantapoom2/ Kaewalin Uttama2/

_________________________________________________________________

ABSTRACT
Growing rice and vegetables is a normal way of life for farmers in several areas of Thailand,
so as in Muang and Kokha district, Lampang province. One of the important vegetables growing in
these two districts is chili (Capsicum annuum L.). Produce was sold either as fresh or dried chili. Foot
rot caused by Sclerotium rolfsii and Fusarium oxysporum frequently outbreaks resulting in the
decrement of yield. Biocontrol using certain fungal antagonists, i.e. Trichoderma virens, T. harzianum
and Chaetomium cupreum, as soil amendment was recommended for effective disease control. This
control method is a new technology for farmers in the fore-mentioned areas. Therefore, Research
Institute for Agricultural Technology and Kokha District Non-formal and Informal Education Centre
performed a co-operation to introduce this technology to the farmers through a hands-on training.
Activities were carried out during the year 2006-2007. The training included lectures on important
diseases of chili, basic knowledge of plant disease biocontrol, practices on production and use of T.
virens to control foot rot of chili as well as a field visit to a successful farmer field. Fifteen farmers
from Muang district and thirty farmers from Kokha district joined this hands-on training. Farmers
expressed high satisfaction for the training. Most of all, they practically learned how to produce, store
and apply T. virens biomass to achieve successful foot rot control in their own chili fields.
Keywords: hands-on training, T. virens, biocontrol, foot rot, chili

__________________________________________________________________________________
1
Research Institute for Agricultural Technology, Rajamangala University of
Technology Lanna, Lampang Thailand
2
Kokha District Non-formal and Informal Education Centre, Lampang, Thailand
*Corresponding author. E-mail: jinantanaj2@yahoo.com

- 48 -
 International Conference on the Role of Universities in Hands-On Education
Rajamangala University of Technology Lanna, Chiang-Mai, Thailand 23-29 August 2009

INTRODUCTION
Chili (Capsicum annum L.) is one of the important cash crops in Lampang province. It was
grown either in rainy or dry season (after rice and where there is sufficient irrigation supply). Produce
was sold either as fresh or dried chili to local markets and processing factories in Lampang and
Chiangmai. Important diseases caused serious damage to chili growing in Muang and Kokha districts,
Lampang, were foot rot, anthracnose and bacterial wilt. The causal agents of foot rot were Sclerotium
rolfsii and Fusarium oxysporum while anthracnose were Colletotrichum gloeosporioides and C.
capsici. and bacterial wilt was Ralstonia solani. Chemical fungicides help to decrease loss but
simultaneously increase input cost. When consider to selling price which is not high, farmers gain less
benefit. Therefore, biological control is proposed as an alternative method to control the diseases,
effectively and economically. However, only foot rot caused by fungal pathogens was successfully
controlled by using certain antagonistic fungi, i.e. Trichoderma harzianum , T. virens and Chaetomium
cupreum. Anthracnose and bacterial wilt are under investigation at several research institutes.
T. virens has long time been reported to inhibit growth of several soilborne pathogens, i.e.
Rhizoctonia solani (Lumsden and Locke, 1989) Pythium ultimum (Wolffhechel and Jensen, 1992)
Phytophthora sp. (Smith et al., 1990) and Sclerotium rolfsii (Ristaino et al., 1994) and showed effective
control against many diseases, i.e., damping-off caused by Rhizoctonia solani in pepper and cucumber
(Lewis and Lumsden, 2001). At present, this antagonistic fungus is commercially produced for widely
use in Europe. In Thailand, an indigeneous isolate of T. virens has shown effective control result
against foot rot of chili in greenhouse and field trials (Jinantana and Kitti, 2002; Jinantana and
Tippawan, 2007). There are two methods commonly used to deliver antagonistic fungi to protect chili
plants from foot rot, seed treatment and soil amendment. Powder formulation is suitable for seed
dressing while granule formulation is for soil amendment. Biocontrol is quite new for farmers in
Muang and Kokha district. Therefore, Research Institute for Agricultural Technology and Kokha
District Non-formal and Informal Education Centre performed a co-operation to introduce this
technology to the farmers through a hands-on training. This project was aimed to help farmers to
understand biocontrol and know how to produce and apply T. virens preparations by themselves to
solve a problem of chili foot rot in their own fields.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Farmer Groups and Background
Farmers who grew chili participated in this training course. There were two groups of
farmers. One group, comprising 15 farmers, was from Muang district and the other group, comprising
30 farmers, was from Kokha district. Chili in Muang district which had irrigation supply was grown
during November to April, after harvesting rice. While, in Kokha district, chili was grown in rainy
season which was during May to September. Popular chili type was so-called in Thai “Che Fah”
(Capsicum annum). There were several commercial varieties, i.e. Jinda, Yok Siam, Intira and Tong

- 49 -
 International Conference on the Role of Universities in Hands-On Education
Rajamangala University of Technology Lanna, Chiang-Mai, Thailand 23-29 August 2009

Dam. Fresh chili from Muang district was sold to the processing factories in Chiangmai, for making
chili sauce. Meanwhile, farmers in Kokha district preferred to sell dried chili either to the middle man
or to local markets near their homes. In addition, they also produced home-made chili paste called
“Nam Prick Laab” which was a traditional seasoning for special folk dish called “Laab Muang”.
Activities in the Training Course
Each farmer group attended the training course in different day. Activities in a one-day-
training course started from classroom and ended in the field. Basic knowledge about important
diseases of chili, meaning of biocontrol, antagonistic fungi used for controlling chili foot rot, etc., was
explained to the farmers. Demonstration, step by step, how to produce antagonistic fungus,
Trichoderma virens, was then carried out. Consequently, farmers practiced culturing this fungus on
sorghum grain medium in order to learn how to produce fungal biomass for their own use. After that,
farmers went to visit a chili field in Ton Tong village, Muang district, Lampang. This field was devided
into two plots. Each plot separately demonstrated use and non-use of T. virens in controlling of foot rot.
Discussion and sharing experience was opened among the participants, the trainers and the owner of
thedemonstration field.
Evaluation and Follow-up
Pre- and post-test was carried out using simple questionnaire and interview during the training
period. There were ten questions in the questionnaire asking generally in order to determine whether
the farmers learned something more comparing between prior to and after participating in the training
course. Satisfaction of the participants was also determined. Follow-up was performed aiming to help
farmers to correctly use T. virens and achieve successful biocontrol of chili foot rot.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Pre- and post-test revealed that all farmers participating in this training course learned what
were the important diseases of chili and how to control these diseases in consideration of safety
methods. They also learned how to control chili foot rot which seriously caused damage in their fields
using an antagonistic fungi, T. virens. Scores of the pre-test were in a range of 10-20% while of post-
test were 80-90%. Farmers actively practiced to culture T. virens on sorghum grain and they could do
correctly. Therefore, they got pure green biomass of T. virens. After drying, this biomass was amended
in each planting hill before transplanting chili seedlings into the field. Demonstration and practices in
this training course enable farmers to learn correctly. Moreover, field visit could encorage farmers in
acceptance of using biocontrol for foot rot since chili plants in the T. virens-use plot grew very well and
yield more as compared to the non-use one. Overall evaluation showed that farmershighly satisfied
participating in this hands-on training. Some activities in this training course were shown in Figure 1.

- 50 -
 International Conference on the Role of Universities in Hands-On Education
Rajamangala University of Technology Lanna, Chiang-Mai, Thailand 23-29 August 2009

(A) (B) (C)

(D) (E) (F)

(G) (H) (I)

(J) (K) (L)

Figure 1 Activities During Training: (A) Learning from Basic Knowledge Lecture; (B)-(C) Farmers
Practiced on Culturing T. virens on Sorghum Grain Medium; (D) Biomass of T. virens After 10-Day-
Incubation; (E)-(G) Field Visit; (H)-(I) Evaluation Using Questionnaire and Interview; (J) Dried
Biomass of T. virens; (K) Applying of T. virens into Planting Bed Prior to Transplanting; (L)
Transplanting of Chili Seedlings.

CONCLUSION
Farmers expressed high satisfaction for the training course. Most of all, they practically
learned how to produce, store and apply T. virens biomass to achieve successful foot rot control in their
own fields.

- 51 -
 International Conference on the Role of Universities in Hands-On Education
Rajamangala University of Technology Lanna, Chiang-Mai, Thailand 23-29 August 2009

REFERENCES
Jinantana Jomduang and Kitti Boonlertnirun. 2002. Shelf-life, Efficacy and Delivery Techniques of
Gliocladium virens Formulations to Control Chili Foot Rot in Thailand. Proceedings
International Conference on Biopesticides 3. April 21-26, 2002, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Jinantana Jomduang and Tippawan Manond. 2007. Application of Trichoderma virens to Farmer
Practice for Controlling of Chili Foot Rot. The 5th InternationalSymposium on Biocontrol
and Biotechnology. November 1-3, 2007. Khon Kaen University, Nongkai campus, Thailand.
Lewis, J.A. and R.D. Lumsden. 2001. Biocontrol of Samping-off of Greenhouse Grown Crops Caused
by Rhizoctonia solani with a Formulation of Trichoderma spp. Crop Protection 20 : 49-56.
Lumsden, R.D. and J.C. Locke. 1989. Biological Control of Damping-off Caused by Pythium ultimum
and Rhizoctonia solani with Gliocladium virens in Soiless Mix. Phytopathology 79: 361-366.
Ristaino, J.B., J.A. Lewis and R.D. Lumsden. 1994. Influence of Isolates of Gliocladium virens and
Delivery System on Biological Control of Southern Blight on Carrot and Tomato in the Field.
Plant Disease 78: 153-156.
Smith, V.L., W.F. Wilcox and G.E. Harman. 1990. Potential for Biological Control of Phytopathora
Root and Crown Rots of Apples by Trichoderma spp. and Gliocladium spp. Phytopathology
80: 880-885.
Wolffhechel, H. and D.F. Jensen. 1992. Use of Trichoderma harzianum and Gliocladium virens for the
Biological Control of Post-emergence Damping-off and Root Rot of Cucumbers Caused by
Pythium ultimum. Journal of Phytopathology 136: 221-230.

- 52 -