Survey of dry root rot of chickpea incidence in Marathwada region

Abstract

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L) is an important pulse crop of India popularly known as ‘Gram’. In India, it is cultivated on nearly about 10.22 million ha. Area with an annual production of 09.88 metric tonnes and productivity of 967 kg/ha. The Marathwada region contributes the 6.58 lakh ha. Area with production of 06.64 lakh tonnes and productivity of 918 kg/ha., during Rabi. (Anonymous, 2014). Of the major fungal diseases infecting chickpea, dry root rot incited by Rhizoctonia bataticola (taub) Butl. Is one of the most destructive and wide spread disease which cause average yield losses of 05-50% (Anonymous, 2012). Keeping in view, economic importance of chickpea and losses incurred by dry root rot disease, present investigations on the aspects viz., survey against R. bataticola were undertaken during Rabi, 2014-15 at the Department of Plant Pathology, College of Agriculture, Badnapur. A roving survey for recording chickpea dry root rot disease incidence was undertaken in Marathawada region. The highest disease incidence was observed in Latur district (23 per cent) and lowest in Aurangabad district (10.20 per cent).