The relatively low juvenile M. incognita populations
observed in check pots probably reflected the effects of
excessive soil temperatures in the pots and high proportion
of FYM in the soil on their survivability. Nevertheless, the
application of aqueous T. erecta plant extracts significantly
suppressed juvenile M. incognita populations and gall
formation on roots of L. esculentum when compared to the
plants grown in untreated, infested soil. In addition, plant
growth parameters were significantly improved over the
infested check and were comparable with those obtained
from plants grown in infested soil treated with carbofuran,
although fruit yields were low in all treatments which may
have reflected poor fruit setting because the plants were
constrained in relatively small pots. Cold aqueous extracts
of T. erecta probably acted by suppressing egg hatch as
found by Walia and Gupta (1997) in a related Petri dish
study with aqueous extracts prepared from 30 and 60-day
old marigold plants.