Phytophthora root rot of potato and its management in Kashmir Valley

Taskeen-Un- Nisa,Shazia Parveen,Mohd Yaqub Bhat,Abdul Hamid Wani

doi:10.21472/bjbs.040713

Abstract

Potato is an important crop and is grown allover the world. It is a promising food to millions of people especially in developing countries after rice, wheat and corn. Potato tubers are attacked by fungal diseases such as dry rots mostly in storage and soft rots at every stage and cause substantial loss. The present study was therefore carried out to study the incidence of fungal rot of potato in storage. It was revealed from the study that potato tubers in storage are attacked by Phytophthora infestans (Mont.) de Bary causing Phytophthora root rot. A study was also carried out for the management of fungal rot of potato with some systemic and non-systemic fungicides. Amongst all the fungicides used carbendazim proved highly effective in reducing the colony diameter and rot severity of Phytophthora infestans followed by hexaconozole, bitertanol, myclobutanil, mancozeb, captan and zineb respectively. Higher concentrations of the fungicide proved effective than lower concentrations.

Highlights

Potato is an important crop which holds promise food to millions of people especially in developing countries
The causal agent of this disease was successfully isolated from the diseased tubers on Potato dextrose agar medium (PDA)
It was clear from the results that potato tubers in storage are attacked by fungus, Phytophthora infestans and this fungus was responsible rot of potatoes under storage conditions and in the field conditions

Summary

Introduction

Potato is an important crop which holds promise food to millions of people especially in developing countries. Major fungal diseases such as late blight, early blight, black scurf, fusarial wilt/dry rot, wart, powdery scab, charcoal rot and major bacterial diseases like soft rot, common scab, bacterial wilt and brown rot cause considerable loss to potato production in field and otherwise. Diseases such as late blight, early blight, Fusarial wilt and black leg primarily affect the crop/foliage where as diseases such as black scurf, wart, powdery scab and common scab disfigure the tubers and reduce their market value (Daradhiyar, 1980; Hooker, 1986; Khurane et al, 1989; Hassan, 1996; Daami-Remadi and Singh, 2006).

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Results

Conclusion