Effect of Bipolaris maydis (Y. Nisikrn & C. Miyake) shoemaker at various growth stages of different maizerncultivars

Abstract

Three local maizerncultivars, namely Jalal, Azam and Iqbal were inoculated with Bipolarisrnmaydis at 6, 10, 14 leaf stages and tasseling stages. Cultivars werernallotted to the main plots and growth stages to the subplots, each consistingrnof six rows, 3m long and 75cm apart. The central two rows of each sub-plot wererninoculated with 104 conidia/ml concentration of the pathogens duringrnsummer 2013 at New Developmental Farm of The University of Agriculture,rnPeshawar. Overall, Jalal registered the lowest disease severity (1.53) on a 0-5rnscale while Iqbal was observed to have the highest disease severity (2.40).rnAmong the growth stages inoculation at the 6-leaf stage resulted in the highestrndisease severity (2.78) and lowest yield (5328.2kg/ha) and yield componentsrnwhile inoculation at the tasseling stage was found to be the least effective inrnterms of disease severity (1.44) and reduction in yield and yield components.rnSimilarly, a significant interaction between the cultivars and growth stagesrnwas observed (P ≤ 0.05).