Identification of Effective Seed Dressing Synthetic Fungicide against Covered Smut of Barley

Abstract

Barley is an important field crop. The present study was designed to identify the efficient seed dressing synthetic fungicide against Ustilago hordei causing covered smut of barley. The treatments included three seed dressing fungicides (Bayton 10 DS, Topsin-M, Dividend-Star 36 F.S) and 4th treatment was set as control to compare their efficacy against the disease. The findings of the treatment indicated that crop stand, seedling mortality, smut infected grains and yield characters of barley were found significantly (P<0.05) controlled with treatment of seed inoculation/ seed dressing with treated fungicides. Fungicide Topsin-M ranked first and sowing of barley with Topsin inoculated seed resulted in 198.67 seed germination m-2, 0.70% seedling mortality, 1.34 grains infected by covered smut, 2.08 percent infected grain, 413.33 spikes m-2, 38.16 grains spike-1, 10.75cm spike length and 3220.70kg ha-1 grain yield. The fungicide Bayton 10 DS ranked second and sowing of barley with Bayton inoculated seed resulted in 182.67 seed germination m-2, 1.11% seedling mortality, 2.14 grains infected by covered smut, 3.05 percent infected grain, 395.67 spikes m-2, 36.50 grains spike-1, 10.43cm spike length and 3037.70kg ha-1 grain yield. The seed dressing fungicide Dividend-Star 36 FS ranked third and sowing of barley with Dividend inoculated seed resulted in 171.67 seed germination m-2, 1.69% seedling mortality, 2.51 grains infected by covered smut, 4.85 percent infected grain, 380.67 spikes m-2, 34.61 grains spike-1, 10.30cm spike length and 2980.70kg ha-1 grain yield. The control plots, where the barley was sown without seed inoculation ranked least (4th) and resulted in 159 seed germination m-2, 3.68% seedling mortality, 3.81 grains infected by covered smut, 10.63 percent infected grain, 333.33 spikes m-2, 34.67 grains spike-1, 10.03cm spike length and 2591kg ha-1 yield of the grain. Concluded findings showed that all the treatments showed effective results as compare to control and minimized the covered smut disease in barley crop; however, among all treated seed dressing fungicides, Topsin-M fungicide was identified with better findings to minimize the disease as compared other above captioned fungicides.