ABSTRACT

 The project studied the antifungal effects of bacteria species isolated from the Rhizosphere of ginger plant. Seven species of bacteria were isolated from five rhizosphere soils of ginger plants with varying levels of occurrence including a species of Bacillus (100%), Pseudomonas sp (100%), Staphylococcus sp (100%), Proteus (60%), Actinon2yces (100%), Escherichia coli (20%) and lactobacillus (40%). Antifungal activity was tested on five chosen fungal species which included Aspergillus sp, Penicilliltm sp, Fusarium sp, Rhizopus sp and Yeast sp. The results obtained revealed that three microbial isolates, Bacillus sp, Actinomyces and Pseudomonas were active against the fungi but to varying extents. Bacillus showed the highest antifungal potency with inhibition zones diameters that ranged from 13.67mm to 22.67mm while Pseudonionas had the least (1.67mm to 17.67mm). The inhibition of Actinomyces was in the range of 14.33mm to 17.33mm. However, the activities of the bacteria isolates against the fungi were lower than that of commercial antifungal agent, mancozade. Notwithstanding, the bacteria isolates showed high relative potencies when compared with the standard antifungal drug. The relative potency of Bacillus isolate was between 64.09% to 88.3 1% that of Pseudomonas was in the range of 54.71% to 6 1.04% while that of the Actinornyces was in the range of 55.82 to 73.47%. There were significant variation in the antifungal effect of the ginger rhizosphere bacterial isolates on the test fungi. Therefore some bacteria species were isolated from the rhizosphere of ginger that have antifungal tendencies.