Epidemiology and Management of Banded Leaf and Sheath Blight caused by Rhizoctonia solani f sp sasakii in Maize

Abstract

newlineThe present research study entitled , Epidemiology and Management of Banded Leaf and Sheath Blight caused by Rhizoctonia solani f. sp. sasakii in Maize was carried out to study the various aspect of the disease i.e., status of BLSB and the relationship of weather parameters with disease development and manage the disease through host resistance and chemical means and biocontrol agents. During the Kharif seasons of 2021 and 2022, data revealed that the overall disease incidence and disease severity in the Jammu Division ranged from 24.54-38.82 per cent and 9.71-26.70 per cent with an overall mean disease incidence and disease severity of 31.46 and 19.53 per cent respectively.The BLSB of maize had a significantly negative correlation with maximum temperature, minimum temperature and non significantly positive correlation with rainfall and showed positive significantly correlation between morning and evening relative humidity.Among Ninety one maize cultivars/genotypes were screenedunder artificially epiphytotic conditionsonly three cultivars/genotypes were found resistant.Among nine fungicides, antibiotic and three biocontriol agents, trifloxystrobin+tebuconazole, fluxopyroxad+ difenocanozole and Trichoderma harzianumproved highly effective in inhibiting the mycelial growth of the test fungus (Rhizoctonia solani). Under artificial (field) conditions, the maximum per cent disease incidence was controlled by the treatments T9 (Trichoderma harzianum (ST) + Tebuconazole + Trifloxystrobin (FS)) (22.08 %) with per cent disease control of (56.64 %) and T11 (Trichoderma harzianum (ST) + Fluxapyroxad + Difenoconazole (FS) ) (23.95 %) (54.19) respectively. newline newline