Diseases of Fruit Plantation Medicinal and Aromatic Crops

Leaf and Seedling blight and Wilt

Causal organsim: Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. vasinfectum
Etiology and Symptoms

• Culture appears cottony white to yellowish with conidiophores simple and branching.
• Macro conidia are several-celled, slightly curved or bent at the pointed ends, multi septate (3-7), typically canoe shaped,hyaline, measuring 25-50 x 4-6 mm under 100x.
• Clusters of single-celled micro conidia in chains are also abundant.
• It infects both budded rubber and seedlings in nurseries and trees in plantations.
• Early symptoms include presence of irregular, brown lesions, which enlarge later.
• As the diseases progresses, the infected leaf eventually withers and a pinkish, shiny, cottony growth is evident on the infected area beneath the leaf surface.
• In young budded seedlings the pathogen causes seedling/shoot tip blight.

Management

• Drench nursery with Bordeaux mixture 1% and use the same spray mixture for seedlings also.