Diseases of Fruit Plantation Medicinal and Aromatic Crops

Leaf blight of papaya

Causal organism:Corynespora cassiicola
Symptoms

• The disease causes severe damage to leaves.
• It first appears as small, discoloured lesions, irregularly scattered on the leaves. These spots become irregular in shape, then increase in size and appear brown to grey in colour. A light yellow zone surrounds the spots.
• Several lesions coalesce to cover large areas of the leaf and in severe infections the whole leaf may die.
• A considerable reduction in the yield is observed.
Management
• Disease can be controlled by spraying Dithane M-45 (0.2%) starting from the appearance of the disease symptoms.