Biological control of plant diseases is a method of controlling plant pests using beneficial organisms. These are native or non-native species of organisms such as living natural enemies, antagonists or competitors or their products and other organisms capable of self-replication, including those packaged or formulated as a commercial biological plant control product. Trichoderma species were first introduced as a biological agent for controlling plant diseases in the 1930s. Initially, the ability to control pathogens was attributed to antibiosis and mycoparasitism. With these two mechanisms of action, Trichoderma species can release antibiotic compounds that inhibit the growth of pathogens and thus enable greater and better growth of Trichoderma spp. fungi. The genus Verticillium is considered one of the world's most important phytopathogenic genera of fungi, especially in moderately warm climates. The species Verticillium dahliae and Verticillium albo-atrum cause the most damage. We were interested in whether Trichoderma species have an antagonistic effect on Verticillium spp. and what role does temperature play. In the experiment, we used 3 Verticillium isolates (V. nonalfalfae (01), V. nonalfalfae (36) and V.dahliae (110)) and 5 Trichoderma isolates (T. atroviride (1872), T. koningiopsis (1874), T. harzianum (2878), T. afroharzianum (2885) and T. gamsii (2883). The studied Trichoderma species inhibited V. nonalfalfae (01) the most at 25 °C. Among them, the fungus T. afroharzianum had the greatest inhibitory effect. The least Trichoderma species inhibited the growth of V. dahliae (110) at 15 °C. Among them, the fungus T. gamsii had the smallest inhibitory effect. A statistically significant inhibition of growth compared to the control occurred in all treatments at the end of the area measurement, i.e. 14th day.
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