Assessment of Copper Sulphate and Silver Nanoparticles for the management of Post-incidence of Black Sigatoka disease of Plantain (Musa spp.)

Abstract

Black Sigatoka is a significant plantain disease caused by Mycosphaerella fijiensis. The study assessed the effect of copper sulphate and silver nanoparticles for managing post-incidence of black Sigatoka disease of plantain.Concentrations of 0.01, 0.05 and 0.1 g/L each of copper sulphate and silver nanoparticles, were applied after visual observation of the disease. The plots of carbendazim served as positive control while the untreated control (0 g/L) was the negative control. At the 14th week after transplanting, the least disease severity of 2.52 was recorded when 0.05 g/L silver nanoparticles was applied while 0.05 g/L copper sulphate had 2.93 severity, which was not significantly different (p ≥ 0.05) from 3.15 severity recorded for plantain sprayed with carbendazim. The result showed that0.05 g/Lsilver nanoparticles reduced the disease severity by 58% and 0.05 g/Lcopper sulphate by 51.17% compared with the untreated control plots.Hence, application of silver nanoparticles at 0.05 g/Lconcentration would be a better option for plantain farmers in curtailing post-incidence emergence of black Sigatoka of plantain. Aside being a significant nanopesticide, biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles using plant extracts would be a greener approach than chemical synthesis while the shift from conventional copper sulphate to nano-enabled applications would reduce dosage and environmental impact.