Tomato is one of the most important vegetables
because of its health benefits and phytochemical
properties. Because of its low calorie
and absence of cholesterol, it is one of the
recommendations of diets needing low cholesterol.
They are quite rich in many important nutrients
and vitamins which include phosphorus
and potassium and also vitamins B and C. They
are also very important against common cancers
like breast and prostate cancer.
As important as tomato is nutritionally and in
being an important cash crop for smallholders
and medium-scale commercial farmers in Africa,
soil-borne pathogens inflicts a lot of diseases and
infections on it (Babalola and Glick 2012). Such
diseases include Bacterial wilt, root knot nematodes
disease, early blight, late blight and
Fusarium wilt. Fusarium wilt is a devastating disease
of tomato and causes a lot of loss to farmers
worldwide. symptoms begins as gradual yellowing
and wilting of the lower leaves (Khan and
Khan 2002) which is brought about by the growth
of the microconidia inter-cellularly in the xylem
of the stem and root. As a result of the failure of
the infected xylem of the plant to meet the water
requirement of the plant, death of the tomato plant
is inevitable (Burgess et al. 2008). Spores from
the conidia are released into surrounding tissues
as the plant dies. They later form chlamydospores
that fall back into the soils (Jones 2000). These
spores can remain in the soil for as long as 30
years until favourable conditions are available
and they can re-infect plants (Thangavelu et al.
2004).
Several microorganisms are being used in the
control of tomato pests and diseases. Listed
among tomato pest control agents are F.
compactum and F. arthrosporioides (Babalola
2010a,b,c). Included in tomato disease control
agents are Trichoderma, Pseudomonas and Bacillus
species. Bacillus-based biocontrol agents
are quite important in the management of pests
and plant diseases (Jacobsen et al. 2004). Varieties
of Bacillus and Paenibacillus help to promote
the health of crops and control diseases by
producing antibiotic metabolites, suppressing
plant pathogens, others antagonise plant pathogens
by competing for nutrients like iron and
phosphate, others indirectly fix nitrogen which
they make available to the plants and help stimulate
plant nutrient uptake (Gardener 2004). This
research seeks to elucidate the biocontrol abilities
of these four Bacillus spp in order to make
use of these abilities for further biocontrol interventions.