Integrated management of Alternaria blight of safflower under field conditions

INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT OF ALTERNARIA BLIGHT OF SAFFLOWER

Abstract

Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.), is one of the oilseeds crop grown throughout the world. The crop suffers from many diseases, among that leafspot/blight caused byAlternaria carthami (Chowdhury) has become one of the major constraints in the production and productivity of safflower all over India. The disease has been reported to cause 25 to 60 per cent yield losses in safflower. Management of safflower Alternaria blight with chemicals alone needs to be discouraged due to their ill-effects. Management trials were conducted with integration of the effective fungicides, bioagents and botanicals under natural epiphytotic condition during rabi, 2013 and 2014. The disease intensity was low (14.34%) with highest reduction (74.36%) with the combination of seed treatment with T. viride @ 10 g/kg + garlic clove extract ST @ 10 ml/kg followed by foliar spray hexaconazole FS @ 0.1 %. Seed treatment with hexaconazole ST @ 1 ml/kg followed by foliar spraying of same fungicide 0.1% also showed low disease intensity of 15.46 per cent and disease control of 72.37 per cent. Seed treatment of T. viride @ 1 ml/kg + garlic clove extract @ 10 ml/kg followed by spraying of mancozeb 0.25% reduced the disease by 69.16 per cent. Significant increase in seed yield up to 54.56 per cent and highest ICBR (3.22) was recorded in treatment of T. viride ST @ 10 g/kg + garlic clove extract ST @ 10 ml/kg + hexaconazole FS @ 0.1 %.