Rice Diseases & Symptoms along with 4 Effective Management Strategies

Almost all rice diseases can be managed to minimize the loss. There are 4 strategies to prevent paddy from getting diseases, however, you can implement all four strategies together to get the most profit and protect your crop. The four strategies are:

Plant resistant varieties: There is no variety of ice that is immune to all types of disease but the newest varieties have a better level of resistance. Choose varieties based on yield trials and resistance to local rice diseases.

Crop rotation: Crop rotation is a vital practice in agriculture because it helps return the nutrients to the soil without any synthetic additions. It will make the soil ready for the next crop.

Plant in warm soil: If the soil around the seed and seedling is cool and wet, it increases the chances of seedling rice diseases. This results in a low-quality yield. Avoid planting in cool soil and treat the seeds with fungicide before planting them.

Fungicides: Look out for blast and sheath blight symptoms from internodes elongation to 90 percent heading. If you find the symptoms, apply a foliar fungicide.

Rice Diseases: Symptom and Management

Blast

Symptom: It affects the leaves (leaf blast), base of the panicle (panicle or neck blast), and nodes  (node blast). Symptoms of the disease include the appearance of spindle-shaped spots with ashy centers. If it's a panicle blast, the panicle gets blackened and shriveled.

Management: Remove weeds from the field.  Stick to the recommended dose and timing for the fertilizers.

Soak the seeds for 12 hours in @1.0 g/l carbendazim solution before sowing in the nursery beds or in the direct sown crop.

Repeat the same process before transplanting the rice crops.

Crops should be sprayed by 2-3 sprays of tricyclazole @0.6 g/l at an interval of 12 days to protect the crops.

Brown Spot

Symptom- Brown spot is also known as poor man’s disease because it is severe in poorly fertilized fields. Symptoms include numerous round spots on the affected crops.

Management: stick to recommended doses and timing for fertilizers.

Leaf Scald

Symptoms: Symptoms are visible at maturity with alternate zones of light and dark yellow color that appear on leaf tips or on the margins.

Management: Spray carbendazim @ 1.0 g/l. Spray the plants thrice at 15 days intervals after you notice their appearance on the crops.

Sheath Blight

Symptoms:  Appearance of spots or lesions o leaf sheaths. Lesions are oblong in shape and large in size with a grayish center and purple reddish margins. In extreme situations, the lesions spread from to the leaf blades as well. In the advanced stages, dark brown sclerotia are also visible.

Management: Stick to the recommended doses and timing of fertilizers.

Use Pseudomonas fluorescence-based formulations as soil application @ 2.5 kg/ha.

Apply foliar spray of validamycin @ 2.5 ml/l or iprodione plus carbendazim (200 g/acre).