Role of Epidemiological and Biochemical Factors against Early Blight of Potato

Abstract

Epidemiological and biochemical factors play a significant role in early blight disease development in potatoes. For this 29 test cultivars/ lines, were screened, 15 lines including Cardinal and Desiree were found to be very highly susceptible. Eight lines including Diament FSD-White, and TPS-9813 showed highly susceptible response. Two lines i.e. 9802 and 396266-33 were susceptible. Only one variety /advanced line FD-1-8 was found to be resistant. None of the 29 advanced lines was found to be highly resistant while two lines such as FD-3-9 and FD-48-41 were shown moderately resistant response. At varietal level, among 29 test varieties/ advanced lines, all the varieties showed highly significant correlation with minimum temperature and negative correlation with maximum temperature. 18 varieties/advanced lines have significant correlation with pan evaporation. Whereas all the 29 varieties/ advanced lines did not show any correlation with relative humidity and wind speed. Five varieties/ advanced lines namely Cardinal, 396240-181, 9803, FD-1-9 and 9801 were selected to study the relationship of environmental conditions with disease severity. Maximum disease severity was recorded at 17-20⁰C maximum temperature, 6-9^oC of minimum air temperature and 1.9-2.4 mm pan evaporation. Relative humidity and wind speed almost had no significant effect on disease severity. On varietal level early blight disease severity had significant correlation with phenolic production both in leaves and tubers. Among 29 varieties, 20 varieties had significant correlation with phenolic production while 9 had no correlation in case of leaves while in case of tubers 19 varieties/ lines showed significant correlation & 10 lines did not show any correlation with phenolics production.