Occurrence of Black Point Disease of Wheat Associated with Different Varieties Growing in Banaskantha District of Gujarat

摘要

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), commonly referred to as bread wheat, is the most important Rabi cereal crop of India. The crop is known to suffer from several diseases. Hafiz (1970) listed 49 diseases of wheat in the world. Out of these, 17 have been reported from India (Joshi, 1975). Diseases become limiting factor in wheat production reducing quality, and quantity of the crops considerably. Black point disease, first reported from India by Dastur (1932) has become a major constraint in recent years for successful and profitable cultivation of wheat in India. The fungus Alternaria alternata is predominantly associated with black point of wheat in India (Gaur 1986; Agrawal et al 1993; Kalappanvar et al 2000; Karwasra et al 2006). The average incidenceranged from 5 to 10 per cent, however, up to 30 per cent incidence has also been observed at some locations of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi (Singh et al1989). On an average upto 23.8 per cent incidence have been reported during the last 10 years surveys from North Gujarat (Patel and Solanki, 2012). The disease occurs regularly in irrigated areas where aestivum wheat is predominantly grown. The present study was therefore, attempted to record the incidence of black point in improved and popular wheat varieties and in areas of Banaskantha district of Gujarat state.