Asian Journal of Research and Review in Agriculture

Root-knot nematodes (Meloidogyne spp.) are economically important polyphagous obligate plant parasites, distributed worldwide, and is known to parasitize nearly every species of higher plants causing an estimated yield loss of 25-50% over wide areas of cultivated land and annual loss of $157 billion globally. However, there is little information on their occurrence on tomato in Taraba State. The Study was conducted to determine the root knot nematode distribution on tomato cultivated farms in Gassol, Ibi, Donga and Wukari. The occurrence of the disease was investigated in 80 farmers’ fields in 16 locations. The result on survey show that M. incognita, M. javanica and M. arenaria were the species identified to be present in samples from the surveyed areas. M. javanica (60 %) was highest in occurrence in Mutum-biyu, Sabongida and Gindin-dutse,  while M. incognita (80%) was more frequent in Mararraba. The occurrence of root knot nematode from the four Local Government Areas reveals that Derived savanna has the  highest occurrence of M. incognita (65 %), followed by Northern guinea savanna with M. javanica (50 %), and southern guinea savanna M. incognita (50-55 %) having highest frequency while M. arenaria (5-10 %) was the least. The present study provides information on which species to target and what strategies to be deployed in the different ecology to ameliorate them in Taraba State, Nigeria.