Farmers report ‘foot rot’ disease in Basmati, experts say ‘junk saplings, grow fresh batch’

Caused by ‘Fusarium verticillioides’ fungi, experts said that the infected saplings turn pale yellow and become elongated and later, the saplings start drying and usually die.

Experts said that the symptoms sometimes appear after transplantation and the infected plants first grow way taller than the normal plants and die after a few days.

Amrik Singh, Gurdaspur’s District Training officer of the Punjab Agriculture department, said that adventitious roots appear on the lower nodes and pinkish growth of the fungus appears on the lower sheaths in most cases. “The timing for growing a seed in the nursery is very important and in Punjab, it must be grown in the first fortnight of June. The transplantation should be done in July when the saplings are around 25 to 30 days old. Hence, farmers who sowed the seeds in May are facing this problem,” Singh said, while elaborating on the reason behind the “foot rot” attack.

He added that to control the spread of the disease, sapling treatment is mandatory and should be carried out as early as possible. “It is also important to use disease-free, treated seeds, apart from destroying the infected saplings. The saplings should be smeared with talc formulation of Trichoderma harzianum for 15 g per kg of seed before sowing and for six hours with T harzianum for 15 g per litre of water before transplantation. The seeds could also be treated with Sprint 75 WS (carbendazim + mancozeb) by making slurry of 3 g fungicide formulation in 10 ml water for one kg seed before sowing,” Singh said, adding that after treatment the sapling must be kept in a layer of 6-7 centimeters on a gunny bag and then it must be covered with another damp gunny bag for a day and then it should be transplanted.