Exploring B6a as a sustainable biocontrol agent for .

The reliance on chemical fungicides for crop protection has raised environmental and health concerns, prompting the need for sustainable and eco-friendly alternatives. Biological control, using antagonistic microorganisms like B6a, offers an eco-friendly approach to managing disease causing phytopathogens. The objective of the study was to assess the efficacy of B6a as a biocontrol agent against PPRI 31301, focusing on its antagonistic activity, its impact on fungal morphology and enzymatic content, and its ability to mitigate pathogen-induced stress in maize plants. antagonistic activity of B6a against was carried out using standard protocol. assay was carried out by bio-priming of maize seeds with 1 × 10 CFU/mL of B6a and infected with for 7 days. Biochemical, enzymatic and antioxidants activities of bio-primed maize roots under infection was carried out using spectrophotometric methods. antagonistic assays using dual culture and intracellular crude metabolites inhibited 70.15 and 71.64%, respectively, of . Furthermore, B6a altered the morphology and mycelia structure of . under High resolution scanning electron microscopy (HR-SEM). This was supported by an increase ( < 0.05) in the chitin contents (48.03%) and a decrease ( < 0.05) in the extracellular polysaccharide content (48.99%) and endo-β-1,4-glucanase activity (42.32%). The infection of maize seeds with resulted in a significant decrease ( < 0.05) in root lengths (37%). Relative to the control and the infected seeds, bio-priming with B6a shows a significant increase ( < 0.05) in the root lengths (44.99%), with a significant decrease ( < 0.05) in reactive oxygen species (ROS)-induced oxidative damage. In conclusion, B6a may be a good biocontrol candidate and may be formulated into a bio-fungicide to control and other related phytopathogens in economically important crops.