In previous in vitro and greenhouse tests, we tested eight Saudi isolates of Trichoderma against M. javanica. Based on the results of these tests (un-published data), two promising isolates namely: T. harzianum (isolate-27) and T. viride (isolate-08) were selected for the present study. The Trichoderma isolates were first cultured on Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) on petri plates. The plates were incubated at 24˚C for 14 days. The produced conidia were collected from the culture surfaces by flooding with sterile distilled water and gently scraping the colony surface with a sterile scrapper ( Jansson et al., 1985).
Pure culture of M. javanica was obtained for tomato plants grown in earthen pots. For the M. javanica inoculum, eggs were extracted by the NaOCl technique ( Hussey and barker, 1973) from the roots of a pure greenhouse culture of M. Javanica on tomato. The egg suspension was adjusted to 2000 eggs/ml.