INTRODUCTION Nutmeg (Myristica fragrans Houtt.) is a perennial evergreen tree spice native to Indonesia's Moluccas islands and a member of the Myristicacea family. It is known as a twin spice because it produces two products, nutmeg from seed and mace from seed covering, both of which are used as spices due to their flavour, aroma, and fragrance. When used in small amounts, it has medicinal properties that aid in the relief of diarrhoea, vomiting, dizziness, and other symptoms. Nutmeg has a high market value for value-added products such as nutmeg syrup, nutmeg jelly, and nutmeg candy. India is the largest exporter of nutmeg, in which Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Goa and konkan are the leading producers. The production of nutmeg in India during 2016–17 was about 16,000 MT from an area of 23,000 ha (GOI, 2017). Kerala contributes to a production of 13,746 tons from an area of 22,065 ha (GOK, 2017). Various diseases, including leaf spot, thread blight, fruit rot, dieback, and twig blight, have an impact on crop productivity. Anthracnose, caused by Colletotrichum gloeosporioides, is one of the principal pathogens that causes significant economic loss due to fruit rot. It was first reported from Kerala in 1961 as an unknown species of Colletotrichum later confirmed as C. gloeosporioides by Nair et al. (1978). Current management strategy of anthracnose disease includes spraying of 1% Bordeaux mixture, biocontrol practices of applying Pseudomonas flourescens, Trichoderma etc. in which the complete management is not achieved. Considering the limitations in the practical usage of new generation fungicides i.e, Triazoles, Strobilurins and combination fungicides in the perennial tree spice crops requires a need for developing a new management strategy with new generation fungicides. Accordingly, to the above facts and research gaps, the present study was conducted with the main objective to identify the best treatment in the management of the anthracnose of nutmeg. MATERIALS AND METHODS Isolation of the pathogen, purification and maintenance of culture. The infected samples collected from different nutmeg growing areas were isolated using the standard procedure for tissue isolation. The isolated cultures were purified by single spore technique (Dhingra and Sinclair 1993). The purified cultures were maintained on Potato dextrose agar (PDA) slants. The pathogenicity was proved by artificial inoculation of Colletotrichum sp. into the healthy nutmeg leaves. Screening of fungicides. The C. gloeosporioides isolate was tested with different commercially available new generation fungicides i.e. two triazoles (propiconazole and difenoconazole), one strobilurin (azoxystrobin,) and three combination fungicides (carbendazim + mancozeb, trifloxystrobin + tebuconazole, captan + hexaconazole) by using poisoned food technique (Nene and Thapliyal 1993) at four different concentrations (10, 25, 50 and 100 ppm) (Table 1). C. gloeosporioides isolate was allowed to grow in the sterile petri dishes containing PDA medium for seven days. Double strength PDA medium of 50 ml and 50 ml of sterile water were prepared for the respective fungicides of different concentrations and autoclaved. Under aseptic conditions, pre-weighed fungicides of different concentrations were dispersed into the conical flasks containing 50 ml sterile water and shaken thoroughly for the complete dispersion of the fungicide. In case of soluble concentrate fungicides, the desired concentrations were taken out by using the micropipettes and allowed to dissolve in the sterile water by thorough shaking. Melted medium was mixed with sterile water containing fungicide. The amended molten medium was poured into the sterile Petri dishes and allowed to solidify. This method was repeated for the different concentrations of each treatment. After the solidification of the medium, mycelial discs of 5 mm diameter were cut by using the sterile cork-borer from the seven-day old culture plate. The mycelial discs were taken by flame sterilized inoculation needle and placed on the centre of the solidified PDA medium amended with the fungicide. Three replications for each concentration of different fungicides were maintained. A control plate inoculated with the pathogen alone and without the fungicide was maintained as control. The Petri dishes were then wrapped and incubated at the room temperature of 28+3°C. The radial growth of the pathogen was recorded when the pathogen in the control plate was fully grown and the percent inhibition by the fungicide was calculated. Percent inhibition of the pathogen by the fungicide over the control was calculated by the formula: Percent inhibition = C-T/C ×100 Where C= Radial growth of the pathogen in control plate in cm T= Radial growth of the pathogen in the treatment plate in cm RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS In vitro screening was carried out to find out the most effective fungicide against C. gloeosporioides by poisoned food technique. Different fungicides used in the experiment were Propiconazole 25 EC, Difenoconazole 25 EC, Azoxystrobin 23 SC, Captan 50% WP + Hexaconazole, 5% WP, Trifloxystrobin 25% + Tebuconazole 55% WP and Carbendazim 12% WP + Mancozeb 63% WP. These fungicides were evaluated at four different concentrations of 10, 25, 50 and 100 ppm. Present study of in vitro screening of new generation fungicides revealed that triazole fungicide Propiconazole 25EC at 100 ppm and combination fungicides, Carbendazim 12% + Mancozeb 63% WP at 25 ppm and Trifloxystrobin 25% + Tebuconazole 55% WP at 100 ppm concentration resulted in cent per cent inhibition of the mycelial growth of the pathogen. Difenoconazole 25 EC, Azoxystrobin 23 SC and Captan 50% WP + Hexaconazole 5% WP showed mycelial inhibition of 69.33, 73.33 and 79.10 per cent respectively at 100 ppm. (Table 3 and Fig. 1 and 2). Ashoka (2005) reported Carbendazim + mancozeb and benomyl showed cent per cent mycelial inhibition of C. gloeosporioides @ 0.025%, 0.005% and 0.1% from vanilla. Chandrakrant (2005) reported the triazole fungicides, propiconazole, difenoconazole and hexaconazole at 0.05 per cent had completely inhibited mycelial growth of C. gloeosporioides from black pepper. Similar results were reported by Jadhav et al. (2008) where Carbendazim + mancozeb @ 0.25 per cent and propiconazole @ 0.1 per cent showed cent per cent inhibition of mycelial growth of C. gloeosporioides. However, the nature of mycelial growth of C. gloeosporioides (C4) in fungicide amended PDA medium presented and summarized in Table 2. Positive correlation of result of the present study was reported from the in vitro studies conducted by Kurian et al. (2008). They reported effective control of black pepper anthracnose isolate of C. gloeosporioides using carbendazim + mancozeb @ 0.1 per cent. Prashanth et al. (2008) also reported pomegranate anthracnose caused by C. gloeosporioides was effectively inhibited by carbendazim + mancozeb @ 0.2 per cent (100 per cent inhibition). Carbendazim + mancozeb (89.23%); and propiconazole and difenoconazole (90.78%) were also effective at 0.1 per cent concentration. The triazole fungicides propiconazole, difenoconazole and hexaconazole (0.1%) completely inhibited mycelial growth of C. gloeosporioides from sapota (Patil et al., 2010). Propiconazole and tebuconazole at 400 ppm effectively inhibited mycelial growth of C. gloeosporioides of mango (83.11% and 80.33% respectively) (Basalingappa, 2011). Azoxystrobin was totally ineffective in inhibiting the mycelial growth of C. gloeosporioides from nutmeg which was in contradiction to the observations made by Adhikary et al. (2013) who reported a mycelial inhibition of 99.69 per cent at 100 ppm concentration. Ahmed et al. (2014) reported the complete inhibition of C. gloeosporioides from betel vineeven at 50 ppm of propiconazole, tricyclazole and tebuconazole. In vitro evaluation of various fungicides carried out by Dev and Narendrappa (2016) revealed that trifloxystrobin + tebuconazole 75 WG (100 ppm, 250 ppm, 500 ppm and 1000 ppm) and triazole fungicide propiconazole (500ppm, 1000 ppm and 2000 ppm) gave 100 per cent mycelial inhibition. Difenoconazole 25 SC (1000 ppm) showed a mycelial inhibition of 85.85 per cent. Strobilurin fungicide, azoxystrobin 25 SC (1000 ppm) was found to show a minimum mycelial inhibition of 52.64 per cent. Parvathy and Girija (2016) reported fungicides viz., propiconazole, tebuconazole, azoxystrobin and carbendazim + mancozeb, captan + hexaconazole each at 0.1 per cent completely inhibited the mycelial growth of C. gloeosporiodies causing black pepper anthracnose. Behera et al. (2019) evaluated the efficacy of carbendazim, mancozeb and its combination fungicide (carbendazim + mancozeb) along with the biocontrol agents in inhibiting the C. gloeosporioides from black pepper. Carbendazim + mancozeb @ 0.1 per cent exhibited a maximum inhibition of 97.26 per cent under in vitro conditions. The results of the study were similar with respect earlier authors. The results of the present study are in par with Asalkar et al. (2019) in which the fungicides carbendazim + mancozeb and propiconazole were found effective with 100% and 97.51% mycelial inhibition respectively. The results of cent percent mycelial inhibition by carbendazim + mancozeb is in agreement with the results obtained by Poonacha et al., (2020). Positive correlation of results is found with results reported by Marak et al., (2020). Least mycelial growth in fungicide amended media was recorded by combination fungicides carbendazim + mancozeb 0.1% and trifloxystrobin + tebuconazole 0.1% with 100% inhibition in which the results of coincides with the current study. Among the six fungicides, carbendazim 12% WP + mancozeb 63% WP was found to be effective in inhibiting the mycelial growth of the pathogen even at a lower concentration of 25 ppm. Propiconazole 25 EC was the most effective triazole fungicide against the anthracnose of nutmeg.