Monitor wheat crop for early detection of yellow rust

摘要

Yellow rust, caused by Puccinia striiformis, is continuously posing a serious threat to wheat cultivation in the Punjab state. The disease has potential to cause yield losses up to 70 per cent depending upon the resistance of cultivar and severity ofdisease. The disease perpetuates on self sown wheat plants and cultivated summer wheatcrop at higher hills of Himalayas, from where it (spores of fungus) travels down to foothills along with air currents and infects the young growing wheat crop in the districts of Ropar, SBS Nagar, Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur, Pathankotand Fatehgarh Sahib. Initially, it appears in patches in few fields in the month of December-January. From these foothill areas, pathogen spreads to other areas of the state. The disease manifests in the form of yellow coloured powdery linear stripes on the leaves. When touchedwith hand, the yellow coloured powder sticks to the finger, which differentiates the yellow rust disease from yellowing of wheat crop due to other physiological reasons. Under favourable weather conditions of low temperature and high relative humidity (temperature 10-15° C and RH > 90%), disease spreads at fast rate posing a serious threat to its management.