Abstract
Cercospora leaf spots caused by Cercospora arachidicola and Cercosporidium personatum are the most widespread diseases of groundnut that result in severe yield losses in Ethiopia. Field trials were conducted at Babile and Dire Dawa to evaluate the effect of integrated use of host resistance and fungicides on the temporal epidemics of leaf spots and yield of groundnut. The experiments were conducted during the 2010 main cropping season using three groundnut varieties and six fungicide treatments. The experiment was laid out as RCBD in a factorial arrangement with three replications. Severity, disease progress rate, area under disease progress curve (AUDPC) and yield of groundnut were used to evaluate the effects of treatments. High levels of disease control were achieved by weekly application of chlorothalonil at both locations. Up to 25 and 65% severity levels were recorded on sprayed and unsprayed plots of the varieties, respectively. Fungicide applications also significantly reduced disease progress rate and AUDPC value on the susceptible variety. Seed yield harvested from fungicide sprayed plots was consistently greater than the yield harvested from unsprayed plots. Key words: Arachis hypogaea L., Cercospora leaf spots, disease progress rate, disease severity and integrated disease management.
Highlights
Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.), known as peanut, is an important leguminous oilseed crop belonging to the family Fabaceae (Mali and Bodhankar, 2009)
In Ethiopia, it is grown over an area of 41,761 ha, with an annual production of
area under disease progress curve (AUDPC) values of 401.3%-days and 452.4%-days were calculated from unsprayed plots of the varieties Oldhale and Betisedi, respectively, which had the highest disease severity at Babile
Summary
Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.), known as peanut, is an important leguminous oilseed crop belonging to the family Fabaceae (Mali and Bodhankar, 2009). This study was conducted to determine the effect of integrated use of host resistance and fungicides spray intervals on the epidemics of Cercospora leaf spots and yield of groundnut. Varieties by spray interval interactions showed very highly significant (P < 0.001) difference at final date of assessment at Babile and Dire Dawa. “Betisedi” while the lowest (24.6%) was observed on plots sprayed chlorothalonil at 7-days interval of the moderately resistant variety “Werer-962” at assessment of 106 DAP (Figure 1B and C).
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