Advances in False Smut of Rice and its Integrated Diseases Management: A Review

Abstract

Rice is an important nutritive crop and primary staple food throughout the world. To reach the increasing global grain demand and food security, rice production needs to be monitored and increased. However, abiotic and biotic stresses have impeded rice cultivation both in tropical and sub-tropical regions. Among biotic stressors, false smut of rice incited by fungus Ustilaginoidea virens (Cooke, 1878) is one of the most common and serious disease throughout the rice cultivation areas and cause up to 40% loss in its yield. The disease is hard to stop, because fungus infect the crop during flowering stage and symptoms of the disease are evident after emergence of rice panicle. The fungus completely destroys the grains and converts them into spore balls, which are toxic and unfit for seed production. Further, control of false smut of rice through fungicide application is feasible; however, high usage of fungicides has led to the resistance development in causal agent besides environmental pollution. In this review, we update the most recent progress regarding the pathogen, its distribution, taxonomy, disease cycle and integrated disease management.