STUDIES ON BLAST DISEASE OF PEARL MILLET[Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R.Br]

Pearl millet a crucial cereal crop suffers from various diseases including blast which affects fodder quality and production. The disease causes economic losses and devastation to the crop. Investigations were conducted at Sardarkrushinagar Dantiwada Agricultural University to understand the factors such as host range resistant source environmental conditions and crop management.The study found that P. grisea can produce the highest blast disease intensity on barley hosts after seven fourteen and twenty-one days of inoculation. The next host was napier grass but P. grisea was not able to infect sorghum hosts even twenty days after inoculation. The study also found that the minimum blast disease intensity was 63.27% in July and the maximum was 72.49% in July. The study also found that weather factors had different effects on the progress of blast disease with the minimum 19.22% disease intensity and highest reduction recorded by tricyclazole.