An eco-friendly approach for management of sheath blight of rice through integrated application of bio-agents, organics and resistance inducing chemicals

Durga Prasad1, Arun Kumar2

1Department of Plant Pathology, BAC, Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour

2Directorate of Planning, Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour

Received: 17 Janaury 2016                              Revised Accepted: 12 March 2016

ABSTRACT

Sheath blight of rice incited by Rhizoctonia solani Kuhn is a potential threat to rice cultivation causing yield loss ranging from 1.2 to 69.0%. Host resistance against sheath blight is not available so far. Fungicidal approaches for its control are damaging to the environment. Eco-friendly approaches have attained importance in modern agriculture to curtail the hazards of extensive use of toxic chemicals for disease control. The present study was undertaken to assess the disease severity, percent disease incidence (PDI) and yield parameters against sheath blight of rice through different combinations of treatments in the field during 2013 and 2014. Among the eco-friendly approaches assessed against sheath blight of rice, soil application of combination of Trichoderma harzianum + Pseudomonas fluorescens + Farm Yard Manure prior to transplanting followed by foliar spray of zinc sulphate (0.5%) + lime (0.25%) at maximum tillering stage showed the maximum reduction in sheath blight severity (50%), percent disease incidence (55.46%) and higher grain yield (28.55%) over the control. The ears and 1000 grain weight showed positive correlation with grain yield. The treatments possessing soil application of bio-agents + FYM/ vermi-compost prior to transplanting showed greater number of tillers per hill comparatively to  no application in the soil.

Key Words: Pseudomonas fluorescens, Resistance inducing chemicals, Rhizoctonia solani, Sheath blight, Trichoderma harzianum