Effectiveness of Pod Coating Formulation With the Carrier Media of Trichoderma asperellum in Controlling Phytophthora Pod Rot Disease

Abstract

One of the important diseases in cocoa plants is pod rot disease caused by pathogen Phytophthora palmivora. Loss which caused pod rot disease varies between 26 % and 50 %.One of the biological agents which potential to control cocoa pod rot is a type of Trichoderma asperellum. There have been many uses of Trichoderma as a biofungicide, including direct spraying, mass propagation on rice media in the form of flour and with the addition of kaolin. This research aims to compare the effectiveness of using Trichoderma asperellum in several cocoa pod coating application techniques. Cocoa pods that had the heaviest attack intensity was on the penis (no T. asperellum treatment) which was 72.22% while the attack symptoms and the lowest disease attack intensity were the T. asperellum treatment, added kaolin and MCC, with an attack intensity of 5.56%. The weight of 100 cocoa beans in each treatment, the amount was not much different from the yield loss rate for the control, namely 17.63% and the treatment of cocoa pods sprayed with Trichoderma directly and pods sprayed with T. asperellum plus kaolin showed the amount of loss. The same yield was 13.29% and in the treatment of spraying T. asperellum which was added kaolin and CMC showed the lowest yield loss of 12.14%. The carrier media must contain important components to support the viability and growth of the microbes inoculated into it. This is because the carrier media functions to grow and extend the shelf life so that the carrier media must contain organic nutrients to support Trichoderma asperellum growth.