Diseases of Fruit Plantation Medicinal and Aromatic Crops

Sooty mould

Causal organism: Tricospermum sp.
Symptoms

• Sooty mold disease on rubber foliage is seasonal and depends largely on excreta and honey secretions of scale insect and other insects. Honey dew like excreta are favorable for the growth of the fungus.
Etiology

• The fungus involved is not a pathogen. |It is purely ectophytic growing on the surface which never invade the host tissue. Sooty growth covers the green chlorophyll and hence greatly hinder the photosynthetic activity of the host plant.
Management
• Insects should be controlled with any of the suitable systemic insecticide.
• Spray of 1% starch solution on the fungal growth turns it dry and form flakes which falls down leaving healthy green plant surfaces.