Combining cruciferous residues with summer irrigation for managing soil-borne plant pathogens

摘要

Soil-borne plant pathogens like Fusarium, Pythium, Macrophomina, Sclerospora, Sclerotium, etc. cause serious losses in many economical plants. The population of these pathogens increases with the increased years of cultivation of susceptible crops inthe same piece of land. Use of resistant varieties is the most practical way of managing these diseases, but in many crops, resistant varieties are not available. Another approach to combat these pathogens is to follow crop rotation involving non-host crops. However, this cultural control is also not feasible in case of pathogens having a wide range of host or where the resting structures can survive in the soil for a long time. Soil solarization has been found to be an efficient method to disinfest soil from resting structures of many stub-born pathogens but has not found wider acceptance under Indian context because of high cost involved in mulching the infested soil with polyethylene sheet.