Vol. 11, Issue 12 (2022)

Author(s):
Sangameshwar, Sadanand K Mushrif, Kiran Kumar KC, Mahesh YS, Shankar Meti and Mallikarjun Awati

Abstract:
Turmeric is one of the important spice crops of India. It has socio-economic and cultural significance in India. However, the yield of the crop is not realized to its potential. Several factors attribute to the low yield of the crop. Among them, the biotic factors are playing a vital role. The leaf spot disease of turmeric caused by Colletotrichum capsici is an important limiting factor in turmeric cultivation. Among all recommended management practices, application of fungicides is the most efficient mode of managing this disease. Hence, in the present investigations, fourteen fungicides that included five contact fungicides, eight systemic fungicides and one combi product were evaluated in vitro against Colletotrichum capsici at different concentrations using poisoned-food technique. The studies revealed that the fungicide carbendazim was highly effective as it completely inhibited the growth of the pathogen at the lowest concentration of 10 ppm followed by propiconazole and hexaconazole which gave 100 percent inhibition at 25 ppm. The least effective fungicides were copper hydroxide, mancozeb, thiophanate methyl, difenoconazole and azoxystrobin which failed to inhibit the growth of the pathogen completely even at 500 ppm. Based on the in vitro results, promising fungicides were further evaluated under field conditions. The results showed that the fungicide carbendazim was very effective registering the least average PDI (20.67) with highest fresh rhizome yield (36.10 t/ha) which was followed by the fungicides viz., propiconazole with average PDI of 27.02 and the yield of 35.50 t/ha and hexaconazole with average PDI of 28.83 and the yield of 34.32 t/ha.