The isolates and mix cultures were screened for
their suppression ability against rice blast pathogen,
P. oryzae by dual culture technique following the
method of Rabindran and Vidyasekaran (1996).
Bacterial isolate used as bacterial whole cell
cultures (BWC) was streaked at one side of petri
dish (3 cm away from the edge) containing PDA.
Five mm mycelial plug from seven-day-old PDA
cultures of P. oryzae were placed at the opposite
side of petri dishes (diameter 9 cm) perpendicular
to the bacterial streaks. Petri dishes inoculated with
fungal discs alone served as control. The treatments
were arranged in completely randomized design
with three replications. The plates were incubated
at 28ºC until fungal mycelia completely covered the
agar surface in control plate. Observations were
done by measuring inhibition zone and mycelial
growth of the pathogen, and percent inhibition of
pathogen growth was calculated using formula I
%=C-T/C x 100; where I = inhibition of mycelial
growth, C= growth of pathogen in the control plate
(cm) and T= growth of pathogen in dual cultures
(cm).