The following treatments were applied three weeks after the seedlings emerged and when the plants were at the 4–5 leaf stage: T1—water (Control), T2—microbial-enriched compost tea applied 24 h prior to inoculation, T3—microbial-enriched compost tea applied 24 h after inoculation, T4—microbialenriched compost tea applied simultaneously with inoculation, T5—microbial-enriched compost tea applied one week after disease outbreak, and T6—Daconil applied 24 h prior to inoculation (2 g l-1). The experiment was conducted in a randomised complete block design with five replicates, and each replicate consisted of three plants. Each of the seedlings was sprayed with 200 ml of one of the six different treatments using a hand sprayer (Siddiqui et al. 2009). Powdery mildew inoculum was prepared as mentioned in ‘‘Preparation of conidial suspension of G. cichoracearum DC.’’ And plants were artificially inoculated with a conidial suspension as described above.