Screening of maize hybrids (Zea mays L.) against the severity of Turcicum leaf blight

Abstract

Maize (Zea mays L.) is an important cereal and fodder crop cultivated across the world (White and Johnson, 2003). It belongs to tribe Maydeae of the family Poaceae. Maize plants are faced with numerous biotic stresses and adverse environmental conditions. Turcicum or Northern corn leaf blight (NCLB) is a serious foliar disease of maize in many tropical and temperate environments .It is a severe disease caused by fungus resulting into yield losses worldwide and is most effectively controlled by resistant varieties. The disease caused development of lesions on leaf surfaces which hampered the photosynthetic processes and thus yield decreases. This experiment was carried out in order to identify the reaction of developed maize hybrids to turcicum leaf blight pathogen under field conditions in randomised block design with three replications. Scoring of infected leaves were based on nine broad categories designated by numerals 1 to 9 (Chung et al., 2010 and Mitiku et al., 2014). After disease scoring PDI was arcsin transformed and analysis was done. Among thirty selected hybrids 3 were found resistant, 10 as moderately susceptible and 17 as moderately resistant.