Crop rotation can play a valuable role in managing plant parasitic nematodes, depending on the availability of profitable non-host or poor host crops. Alternatively, non-host cover crops or green manures can be used in succession to summer cash crops for this purpose. The aim of the current study was to evaluate, under greenhouse conditions, the host status of commercial hybrids and cultivars of grain and silage sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) for Meloidogyne javanica, and to assess the effect of sorghum on nematode population in comparison with pearl millet (poor host for M. javanica), showy crotalaria and sunn hemp (both non-hosts). Based on two experiments, it was stated that, as a rule, grain sorghum is a poor host for M. javanica, but silage sorghum is a good host. Silage sorghum ‘BRS 601’ was an exception. In other experiments, grain sorghum, pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum ‘BN 2’), showy crotalaria (Crotalaria spectabilis ‘Comum’) and sunn hemp (C. juncea ‘IAC-KR-1’) reduced M. javanica population level, while silage sorghum increased the nematode density.
Crotalaria juncea; Crotalaria spectabilis; Pennisetum glaucum; Sorghum bicolor; crop rotation; root knot nematode
