Journal of Soil and Plant Interactions

Root-knot nematodes cause physiological and anatomical disorders in plants. The present study contains the results of an investigation of the effect of Meloidogyne incognita race2 on the growth of roots and aerial organs of tomato under greenhouse conditions. The experiment in a completely randomized design split split plot on two susceptible (Falat Y) and tolerante (Gina VF) tomatoes variety with four nematode population levels, 0 (control), 500, 1000 and 2000 second stage juveniles in four termination times (20, 40, 60 and 80 days after inoculation) and four replications was carried out. The species and race of nematode were determined after sampling and purification. Inoculum densities were obtained by reproduction of pure population on tomato Rutgers cultivar. Nematode population levels were inoculated at four-leaf stage and characteristics were measured at mentioned time. The results showed that increasing nematode populations levels, increased the number of galls, egg sacs and second stage juvenile in both cultivars, which changing were far more in the susceptible variety. But the reproduction factor decreased. Stress of nematodes affected plant morphological traits and growth indices. In high population levels, plant growth characters such as chlorophyll, leaf relative water content, stem diameter, leaf area, plant height, stem dry and fresh weight, root length/root volume, leaf area/ root level, root density and root dry weight/soil volume were decreased. But root fresh and dry weight, root area, root fresh weight/soil volume, root diameter, root volume and root area density were increased.