Cucumber (Cucumis sativus Linn.) belongs to the family Cucurbitaceae is one of the most important commercial crops grown across the climatic regions from tropical to temperate areas of india as well as in Himachal Pradesh. In Himachal pradesh area under cucurbits is 2735 ha with a total production of 66,345 MT (Anonymus 2016). Like many cucurbit crops, cucumber is prone to a number of fungal, bacterial and viral diseases which cause serious economic losses to the crop. Fungal diseases like downy mildew {Pseudoperonospora cubensis), powdery mildew (Sphaerotheca fuliginea), anthracnose {Colletotrichum orbiculare syn. C. lagenahum), damping off (Pythium spp.), fusarium wilt (Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cucumehnum) and Phytophthora crown and root rot (Phytophthora capsici) inflict huge economic losses worldwide (Zitter et al., 1998; Saha, 2002). Among all diseases anthracnose (Colletotrichum lagenarium) is a serious, disease which infects all the aerial parts of cucumber plant and manifests as angular toroughly circular reddish-brown lesions on leaves. Under humid conditions the lesions become dotted with pinkish masses of conidia. Conidia are mostly produced singly and occasionally in chains from acervuli acrogenously. In severe attack, anthracnose mayreduce crop yield. Such attacks occur mostly in early season when the conditions of enough precipitation and temperature <32°c prevail (Thompson and Jenkins, 1985). In Himachal Pradesh it is distributed in Kangra, Sirmour, Bilaspur, Mandi, Solan and Una districts, but it is reported that it causes considerable loss in Solan district where cucumber is grown as a cash crop (Reddy, 1988). Unawareness of farmers about improved varieties, diseases and pests damaging the crop and their control measures arelimiting factors for its production and productivity.A survey was planned to study the distribution pattern of this disease in HP conditions.
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