Biological control is known to be effective eco-friendly method for the management of crop diseases (Cook and Baker, 1983). Rhizosphere antagonists were isolated from healthy rhizosphere soil samples of chilli collected from major chilli growing areas of Andhra Pradesh. A total of 20 rhizosphere microbes were isolated. Out of which (eight fungal antagonists, ten bacterial antagonists and two fluorescent Pseudomonads) were found to exhibit antagonism against chilli wilt pathogen. On further in vitro evaluation, nine isolates including four fungi, four bacteria and one pseudomonas sp. were found to be most efficient against chilli wilt pathogen. Those rhizosphereic bacterial antagonists (RBA1, RBA 2, RBA 3 and RBA 4) and rhizospheric fluorescent pseudomonads (RFP1) which were found to be extremely efficient against Fusarium wilt pathogen in dual culture were further phenotypically identified based on the production of Siderophores, HCN and ammonia. Among them fluorescent pseudomonads RFP 1 was positive to siderophore, HCN and ammonia production. | Phenotypic identification of promising rhizospheric antagonistic microbes of chilli Capsicum annuum L.
