Cultivation of Rosemary as an ornamental-medicinal plant and managing its root rot disease in northeast of Iran

Productions of Rosemary as an ornamental-medical plant have recently developed in eastern parts of Iran. However, root rot disease have resulted serious problems such as yield loss on these plants especially in newly planted fields, where the suitable conditions allows the disease to build up. The present study has been carried out to assess the managing of root rot and wilting disease of Rosemary, caused by fungal soil-borne pathogens. For this mean, Rosemary fields in north eastern parts of Iran were visited, infected plants and soil were collected and their fungal pathogens were isolated. Three isolated fungi were identified as the main pathogen including Phytophthora citrophthora,Rhizoctonia solani and Fusarium oxysporum. Pathogenicity tests also proved that these isolated soil borne fungi were the casual agents of root rot disease. In addition for managing this disease, soil solarization treatments were applied to P. citrophthora and F. oxysporumfor 6 weeks, in pre-planted field soils. Population density of P. citrophthora and F. oxysporum were decreased from 1800 and 1300 cfu/g to 300 and 200 cfu/g, respectively. This technique is recommended for medicine produce in managing Rosemary soil-borne disease before planting them in fields.   Key words: Rosemary, medicine, root rot, disease, managing.