Yield Loss Due to Septoria tritici Blotch (Septoria Tritici) of Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) in the Central Highlands of Ethiopia

Yitagesu Tadesse

doi:10.7176/jbah/10-10-01

Abstract

Septoria tritici blotch (STB) is an economically important foliar disease on wheat. The current research was conducted to determine the yield loss of STB on wheat at Holeta and Kulumsa in 2017. Maximum relative grain yield loss (36%) was recorded on unsprayed plots of the variety Kekeba at Holetta. Whereas; at Kulumsa, maximum relative grain yield loss (39%) was on unsprayed plots of the variety Madawalabu. Disease severity, incidence and AUDPC showed highly significant and negative correlations with grain yield, spike length, plant height, and weight of kernel per spike, kernel number per spike, thousand seed weight and hectoliter weight. The present findings confirmed the importance of STB in Ethiopia and the role fungicides play in managing the disease on partially resistant varieties. Keywords : Correlation, Septoria tritici blotch, Yield Loss, Yield recovery . DOI: 10.7176/JBAH/10-10-01 Publication date: May 31 st 2020

Highlights

Background and JustificationWheat is one of the oldest cereal crops
Yield and Yield Components Recovery The highest yield recovery over unsprayed plot, 55% and 65%, were recorded from Kekeba variety sprayed with MTMT at Holeta and Tilt sprayed Madawalabu variety at Kulumsa (Table 3)
A field experiment was conducted at Holetta and Kulumsa in 2016 main cropping season to determine the effect of Septoria tritici blotch (STB) disease on yield and yield components loss and recovery of bread wheat varieties

Summary

Introduction

Wheat is one of the oldest cereal crops. It is grown under a wide range of cli-mates and soils and adapted to temperate regions with annual rainfall of 30–90 cm (FAO,2017). It is the fourth most important cereal crop in agriculture after teff (Eragrostis tef (Zucc.)Trotter), maize (Zea mays L) and sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench). In terms of total grain production, it ranks third after maize and teff (CSA, 2017). In spite of the production and yield increases, average grain yield of wheat is still low (

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Conclusion