In the presence of compost, green waste biochar has
promoted plant growth both in chlamydospore inoculated
(+Chl) and un-inoculated (−Chl) tomato plants
(Fig. 1a, b). Among all the treatments, tomato plants
grown in ‘GWBcomp’ amended soil substrate had higher
root (0.71 g) and shoot dry biomass (2.67 g) yield.
Moreover, the plants in ‘GWB’ amended substrate has
sustained the disease stress more effectively then
‘Comp + Chl, WCBcomp + Chl and US + Chl’
treatments. There was a substantial decrease in root
and shoot dry biomass of ‘+Chl’ plants grown in
‘Comp’ and ‘WCBcomp’ treatments as compared to their
respective un-inoculated counterparts. The maximum
Fusarium chlamydospore induced reduction in root
dry biomass was recorded in ‘WCBcomp + Chl’
(0.36 g) as compared to its respective un-inoculated
control (‘WCBcomp–Chl’; 0.55 g). The significant reduction
in root dry biomass in all of the inoculated
treatments were ranked as (from minimum to maximum
reduction) ‘GWBcomp +Chl Comp+Chl WCBcomp+
Chl US+Chl’ (Fig. 1a), whereas in case of the shoot dry
biomass treatments were ordered as ‘GWBcomp + Chl
Comp + Chl ≈ WCBcomp + Chl US + Chl’ (Fig. 1b).