Diseases of vegetables
• Damping off
• Bacterial wilt
• Blights
• Mildews
• Common viral diseases
• Few Postharvest diseases (anthracnose, soft
rot, black rot,
Damping off
• Caused by several soil-borne fungi
including Pythium, Phytophthora, Rhizoctoniaa
nd Fusarium,
• Infect seedlings and cause them to ‘damp off’
or collapse and decay.
Most serious nursery disease
• Two forms of DO:
– Seedlings may fail to emerge (pre-emergence
damping off)
– Seedlings collapse soon after emergence (post
emergence damping off)
Management
• Field sanitation
• Deep ploughing
• Soil sterilization
• Irrigation management
• Avoid dense sowing
• FUNGICIDES ?
Bacterial wilt
• Many solanaceous and cucurbit vegetables
• Causal agents: Ralstonia solanaecearum,
Erwinia, Xanthomonas
Symptoms
• The youngest leaves are the first to be affected
• Wilting around mid day
• Wilting of leaves without yellowing
• Collapse of entire plant
• Stunting
• large numbers of adventitious roots are produced
on the stem
• Browning of vascular systems
• Bacterial ooze from cut stem
Browning of vascular
tissue
Means of Movement and Dispersal
• Spread in soil, and survives for
varying periods of time
• In irrigation (drainage) water
• Alternative hosts
Management
• Use of disease free healthy seedlings
for transplanting
• Control of weed hosts and volunteer plants
• 3 years crop rotation with non host crops
(including cereals and cruciferous - using maize,
okra, cowpea)
• Soil amendments with green manure
• Control of nematodes
• Avoidance of surface water for irrigation
• Varietal resistance
Alternaria blight/Early blight
• Caused by Alternaria solani
• Affected Plant Stages - Fruiting stage, and post-
harvest
• Affected Plant Parts - Leaves, stems, and
fruits/pods, tubers
• Hosts – Tomato, Potatoes, eggplant, Chilli
Symptoms
• Small, isolated scattered pale brown
spots on leaves, stems or pods
• Spots first appear on older leaves as irregular, brown,
dead areas
• Spots enlarge and develop concentric
black rings in the necrotic tissue
(“target spot”)
Alternaria conidia
• On tomato fruit spots occur at the stem end
are dark, leathery, sunken lesions with a concentric
ring appearance
• Fruit infections occur only while fruit is green
Management
• Selection of healthy seeds
• Destroy crop debris
• Crop rotation
• Use of less susceptible varieties
• Avoid planting new plots alongside
old ones
Late blight
• Phytophthora infestans
• Primary hosts: tomato, potato
• Secondary hosts: Capsicum annuum (bell pepper)
Symptoms
• Irregularly shaped, small lesions
• With or without a small surrounding area of
collapsed but still green tissue
• Lesions later turn brown
• Older lesions are larger and assume a circular
appearance
• They are usually not delimited by the veins
• If there are many lesions on a single leaf, the entire
leaf can turn chlorotic
Management
Sanitary measures +resistance+ timely
chemical application
• Reduction in the amount of initial inoculum and
suppression of pathogen growth rates
• Spray of Thiophanate-methyl plus mancozeb
Downy mildew of cucumber
• Pseudoperonospora cubensis
Symptoms:
• Angular, yellowish spots on leaves which turn brown and
shrivel
• A grayish mass of spores form on the underside of leaves
• Dropping of small fruits and flowers
• Leaf becomes brownish, distorted
Chlorotic, angular lesions typical of downy mildew on upper surface
of cucumber leaves.
Lower surface of cucumber leaf reveals black sporulation.
Powdery mildew of cucurbits
• Erysiphe cichoracearum
•White, powdery like patches on both sides of the leaf
•Leaves turn yellow and later brown
•Cup shape appearance of leaf
•Dropping of small fruits and flowers
powdery like patches
Management
Spraying of Bitertanol or Carbendazim or
Chlorothalonil 2-3 times at fortnightly
intervals
Leaf curl disease complex
• Chilli mosaic viruses – tobacco, cucumber and
potato
• Vectors: white flies, aphids and mites
Control:
Use virus-free seed.
Control vectors with insecticides
Brinjal Little leaf disease
• Caused by phytoplasma
• Severe damage when seedlings infected
• No yield can be expected
symptoms
• Small, narrow emerging leaves
• Short petioles, short internodes
• No flowering
• Green colour flowers – phyllody
• No fruits/pods
Management
• Removal and destruction of infected plants
• Use of resistant varieties
• Vector control
• Root dip in 1000 ppm tetracycline
Anthracnose
• Severe post harvest disease in many fruits and
vegetables.
• Causal agent : Colletotrichum species
• Hosts – Chilli, tomato, potato, brinjal, beans and
many fruits
• Disease is severe in wet weather
Causal agents of anthracnose disease in
some crops
Host Anthracnose causal agent
Tomato Colletotrichum coccodes
Chilli Colletotrichum truncatum (capsici)
Colletotrichum gloeosporioides
Beans Colletotrichum lindemuthianum
Banana Colletotrichum musae
Mango Colletotrichum gloeosporioides
Papaya Colletotrichum gloeosporioides
Strawberry Colletotrichum acutatum
Symptoms
• Usually appear as dark sunken lesions on fruit
surfaces that expand rapidly.
• Later covered with spore masses. Pink colour,
mostly in concentric pattern
• Also cause die back and stem lesions
Tomato
anthracnose
Tomato
anthracnose
Chilli
anthracnose
Bean anthracnose
Management
– Disease free seeds
– Seed treatment (Captan, Thiram)
– Field sanitation, Deep ploughing
– Crop rotation
– Nursery bed sterilization
– Where the disease is severe, preventive
spraying should commence at flowering
and continue at 7-10 day intervals
Chlorothalonil, Thiphanate-methyl, Mancozeb
black rot in cabbage
(Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris)
Black rot of cabbage (Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris):symptom from
infection of wounded tissue.
Black rot of cabbage (Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris):
classic V-shaped symptom from infection of hydathode.
Blackened veins can be seen in stems and leaf petioles by
cutting crosswise.
Black rot vascular discoloration throughout heart.
Black rot vascular discoloration at core of stored cabbage.
Management
• An integrated, comprehensive program is needed to manage
black rot successfully:
• Use resistant varieties.
• Certified seeds
• Hot water treatment,
• Provide seedlings with optimal conditions of water, fertility,
temperature, and light for growth.
• Inspect seedlings routinely. If symptoms are found early,
destroy seedlings in that area.
• Incorporate leftover plants by plowing crop rotation
• fields with good drainage and use raised beds.
• Control insects and weeds, especially cruciferous weeds.
• Do not irrigate early in the day when dew is present or so late
in the day that foliage remains wet overnight.
• Avoid physical damages at transplanting
Bacterial soft rot in vegetables
• Mainly cause by Erwinia carotovora pv carotovora
• Bacteria produce cell wall degrading enzymes causing
softening and rotting of tissues
• initially appear as water-soaked lesions
• Later whole affected area get rotten
• “mushy” cream coloured and slimy
• Bacterial cells and cell debris ooze out from the
broken tissues
• Often have a bad smell “ foul smell”
• An entire vegetable may become converted into a
watery, decayed mass within 3-5 days!
• often accompanied by secondary invaders
Management
• Mainly sanitary and cultural practices
• Both pre-harvest and post harvest practices
