author(s)
Ragupathi KP, PR Renganayaki, S Sundareswaran, S Mohan Kumar and A Kamalakannan

abstract
Seed borne diseases can easily spread from one place to another and serve as an initial source of inoculum. Mycoflora are causative agents of devastating tomato diseases like early blight, fusarium wilt, root and fruit rots. A total of 100 tomato seed samples of cultivar PKM 1 were collected from seed producers and farmers across different agro climatic regions of Tamilnadu and screened for their seed borne mycoflora. A total of 14 species of fungi viz., Alternaria solani, Alternaria alternata, Stemphylium solani, Fusarium moniliforme, Fusarium oxysporum, Colletotrichum capsici, Curvularia lunata, Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavus, Rhizopus nigricans, Helminthosporium solani, Pythium debaryanum, Rhizoctonia solani and Phytophthora infestans were recovered from the collected seed samples using various seed health testing methods. Isolated plant pathogens, were tested for their pathogenicity and transmission on tomato cultivar PKM 1 seedlings.