Prevalence of Rice Sheath Blight Disease in Cauvery Command Area of Karnataka, India

Among the various disease of rice, sheath blight caused by Rhizoctonia solani Kuhn has become one of the major fungal diseases covering different rice growing ecosystem of Cauvery command area of Karnataka. Roving disease survey was conducted during Kharif-2022 to know the occurrence and spread of sheath blight disease in Cauvery command area of Karnataka i.e. Mandya, Hassan, Mysuru and Chamarajnagara. Among the four districts surveyed, disease severity (%) was found highest in Hassan district with a mean disease severity of 22.86% which is followed by Mandya (19.90%), Mysuru (19.39%) and least disease severity was recorded in Chamarajnagara (12.54%). The high severity of sheath blight might be due to the highly favourable factors like high relative humidity, less temperature and water stagnation in these locations during the period of survey. Large scale cultivation of susceptible varieties as mono crop continuously on the same field might have increased the possibility of perpetuating the pathogen in the crop debris. This study can serve as basic to evaluate location specific integrated disease management strategy against sheath blight disease of rice.