ABSTRACT
Eggplant is rich in nutrients and supplies vital vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber to the human diet, especially in the rainy season, when other vegetables are in short supply for the rural and urban poor. It also has low fat, zero cholesterol, and very low-calorie content. Damping-off is a term often given to the sudden death of seedlings. It is an important disease of solanaceous crops. It is usually associated with the fungi Pythium, Rhizoctonia, or Phytophthora. The zoosporangium produces several zoospores that are encysted and cause infection to the germinating plant seedling below the soil surface or at the collar region of the seedlings adjoining to the soil surface. Phomopsis vexans perennates both as mycelium and spores during the offseason in plant debris in the soil. The pathogen also seed-borne and pycnidia of the fungus have also been observed in the seed. The disease symptoms are characterized by chlorotic lesion, angular to irregular in shape, later turning grayish-brown.
