Integrated management of seedling blight disease of tea caused by Sclerotium rolfsi

Abstract

Tea is one of the important plantation crops in Nepal. One of the important fungal pathogens Sclerotium rolfsii, causing seedling blight disease in tea was found to be predominant in the nursery grown plants. The art and science of plant disease control has moved in the direction of biological control of plant pathogen is a distinct possibility for the future and can be successfully exploited in modern agriculture, especially within the framework of integrated disease management systems. Effective integrated management practices against S. rolfsii were developed using neem cake, oil cake, aqueous leaf extract of Azadirachta indica, bio-control agent like Trichoderma harzianum and calixin (0.1 vi%) in vivo. Combination with cow dung, neem cake, oil cake, chicken manure and rabbit manure, disease reduction were insignificant. However, combination with neem cake and oil cake showed 66.4% disease incidence, whereas in oil cake, neem cake and Azadirachta indica in combination disease incidence were recorded 11.1%. Under pot culture conditions T. harzianum alone and in combination with neem cake, oil cake and Azadirachta indica provided best effective management practices of seedling blight in all the three modes of application viz., simultaneous, repeated and post infection.