Survey of Major Wheat Diseases in South Eastern Ethiopia

Getnet Muche Abebele,Alemu Ayele Zerihun,Tamirat Negash

doi:10.11648/j.sr.20210904.11

Abstract

Wheat foliar mainly rusts, and root and foot diseases are important biological constraints to wheat production in Ethiopia especially in Arsi and West Arsi - main wheat belt areas of Ethiopia. Both fungal diseases incurred huge economic losses annually. In 2020 main growing season, assessment was carried out with the stress to ascertain the state of major foliar, root and foot diseases of wheat in Arsi and West Arsi zones of Ethiopia. The assessment result showed yellow rust, septoria leaf blotch and stem rust diseases among foliar; fusarium head blight from spike diseases; eyespot and take all from foot and root were found prevalent. The incidence of foliar diseases viz septoria leaf blotch, yellow and stem rust was 100%, 92.7% and 11.8% respectively. While take all and eyespot were observed 52.4% and 48.5% in the same order. Unlike its incidence, maximum disease severity was caused by yellow rust with higher epidemics on Kubsa and Ogolcho varieties that occupied largest volume in assessed farms. Take- all and eyespots were observed on fields where continuous monocropping is practiced with severity ranges of 0-5 and 0-3 respectively. Thus, it is advisable that much works are needed to train producers to use up-to-date released wheat varieties in order to reduce rust diseases and conduct crop rotation and residue management for the control of foot and root diseases thereby decline associated yield losses.

Highlights

Wheat is the cereal food grain that is produced in the largest land area and the most volume [1] where more than one-third of the world's population uses it as a fundamental food [2]
Field assessment was carried out in major wheat producing agro ecological districts of Arsi and West Arsi zones of Oromia National Regional State, Ethiopia to determine the fate of incidence, and severity of foliar diseases, fusarium head blight and foot and root diseases during 2020 growing season
The varieties were highly susceptible to yellow rust thereby leave extra cost to growers for purchasing fungicides [26] for instance farmers sprayed one to four times in 2020 growing season

Summary

Introduction

Wheat is the cereal food grain that is produced in the largest land area and the most volume [1] where more than one-third of the world's population uses it as a fundamental food [2]. The productivity of wheat has increased in the last few years, the mean productivity in Ethiopia is very low as compared to other wheat producing countries [10]. The national average productivity is estimated to 2.35 tons/ha [11] which is below the world’s average This low yield is attributed to multi faced abiotic and biotic factors [12]. Among the abiotic factors drought, nutrient deficiencies, and water logging in vertisol areas, cultivating unimproved low yielding varieties, low and uneven rainfall, poor agronomic practices, are identified as major threats as well as the biotic stresses like grass weeds and diseases are the major constraints reducing wheat production [13]

Methods

Results

Conclusion