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Management of pearl millet blast through fungicides and biocontrol agents

The in vivo experiment was conducted at Agricultural Research Station, Vizianagaram against pearl millet blast revealed that all the treatments showed significant reduction in blast disease incidence in pearl millet. Among all the treatments T3i.e., foliar application of Pseudomonas fluorescens at 20 DAS and Trifloxystrob in + Tebuconazole at 35 DAS was found effective with least disease intensity of blast (14.1%), highest grain (26.0 q/ha) and fodder yield (60.9 q/ha). While the highest disease intensity (94.8) was noticed in the treatment T6i.e., control with lowest grain (9.3 q/ha) and fodder yiled (26.3 q/ha). The highest cost benefit ratio (2.5) was obtained in treatment T3.


Introduction
Pearl millet (Pennisetumglaucum (L.) R. Br.) is one of the important cereal and drought tolerant crop grown in arid and semi arid tropics of Asia and Africa. It is highly nutritious which high amounts of iron and zinc (Rai et al., 2008) [12] . It is grown as dual purpose crop for grain and fodder purpose. In India, pearl millet is popular as bajra and is cultivated under rainfed conditions with an annual production of about 86.60 lakh tonnes (India stat 2019). As, pearl millet crop is prone to number of diseases which is a major constraint in production causing low yield and economic losses. The fungal diseases that affect pearl millet such as, downy mildew or green ear disease (Sclerosporagraminicola), rust (Pucciniasubstriata var. indica), smut (Tolyposporiumpenicillariae) and sugary disease or ergot of bajra (Clavicepsfusiformis) which bothers both the farmers and researchers. On the other hand, leaf spots which are caused by pathogens like, Pyriculariagrisea, Bipolarissetariae, Cercosporapenniseti, Curvulariapenniseti, Drechsleradematioidea and Exserohilumrostratum destroys the foliage and thus reducing yield. Among the leaf spots, blast disease caused by Pyriculariagrisea which is considered as a minor problem during the past but now emerged as a serious problem affecting both forage and grain production of pearl millet in India (Lukose et al., 2007) [6] . Although, host plant resistance is considered as the most economical and ecofriendly method of management of plant diseases. Hence, efforts are being made to understand inheritance of resistance to P. grisea and pathogenic variation in the pathogen so as to develop pearl millet parental lines and hybrids resistant to blast (Gupta et al., 2012) [2] . As, the blast disease in rice is primarily managed through host plant resistance, the pathogen has the ability to develop new pathogenic races leading to breakdown of resistance within few years (Ahn, 1994). Hence, extensive research is being carried out to manage blast disease in different crops using fungicides (Lukose et al., 2007, Narayana Swamy et al., 2009Netam et al., 2014;Pagani et al., 2014) [6,7,9,10] . Hence, a research was executed to know the efficacy of fungicides and biocontrol agents.

Materials and Methods
The field experiment was conducted at Agricultural Research Station, Vizianagaram for the management of blast disease in pearl millet by using fungicides and potential biocontrol agents like Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas fluorescens and chitosan.
These isolates were collected from Department of Biological control, Vizianagaram. The experiment was laid out in randomized block design (RBD) with three replications at spacing of 45×15 cm with 3×2.7 m gross plot size. Standard agronomic practices of NPK-50kg, 40kg, 25kg were followed at the time of crop growth period. The crop was sown in the second week of July 2019. A susceptible variety ICMV 155 was used in this experiment by imposing the following treatments: (Table 1). Seed treatment was done with chitosan at the time of sowing with 3.75 g of chitosan for one kg seed. For foliar spray both the biocontrol agents ie., Pseudomonas fluorescens and Bacillus subtilis were applied @ 10 g/l. For foliar spray Trifloxystrobin + Tebuconazole was applied @ 0.4 g/l Two foliar sprays with biocontrol agents and fungicides were done at 20 days after sowing as first spray and at 35 days after sowing as second spray. The intensity of blast was recorded after seven days of each spray. Ten plants were selected randomly and labeled from each plot for scoring the disease intensity. These labeled plants were observed for disease intensity from upper, middle and lower leaves using disease rating scale of 0-9 (IRRI, 1988) [4] . The grain and fodder yield per ha were recorded. Standard Evaluation System (SES) for blast (IRRI, 1988) [4] . The per cent disease intensity (PDI) was calculated by using the following formula  Small brown specks of pinhead size without sporulatingcenter 2 Small roundish to slightly elongated, necrotic grey spots, about 1-2 mm in diameter with a distinct brown margin, lesions are mostly found on the lower leaves 3 Lesion type is the same as in scale 2, but significant number lesions are on the upper leaves 4 Typical sporulating blast lesions, 3 mm or longer, infecting less than 2% of the leaf area 5 Typical blast lesions infecting 2-10% of the leaf area 6 Blast lesions infecting 11-25% leaf area 7 Blast lesions infecting 26-50% leaf area 8 Blast lesions infecting 51-75% leaf area 9 More than 75% leaf area affected

Results and Discussion
The findings of the present study from Table 3 (Ramappa et al., 2002) [13] . Sitther and Gananamanickan (1996) [15] reported that six strains of Pseudomonas fluorescens showed their ability to inhibit the finger millet blast fungus. Seed treatment and two foliar sprays with Pseudomonas fluorescens most effective in reducing blast disease of finger millet (Kumar and Kumar, 2011) [5] . Netam et al., (2016) [8] reported that foliar sprays of Pseudomonas fluorescenswas effective in controlling blast incidence. Trifloxystrobin + Tebuconazolewas found to be effective in managing the blast disease in pearl millet with higher yield (Ajay et al., 2018) [1] . Field experiment results of Sharma et.al., 2018 revealed that three sprays ofTebuconazole + Trifloxystrobin or propiconazolewas superior in reducing blast incidence with higher yields in pearl millet. Parmesh et al, (2016) reported that rice blast was effectively controlled with Tebuconazole + Trifloxystrobin and resulted in higher yield.

Conclusion
The entire study showed that all the treatments are effective in controlling pearl millet blast. Further it is concluded that initial spray of Pseudomonas fluorescensand Trifloxystrobin + Tebuconazole as second spray was found superior in managing the blast disease.