COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE,RAIPUR

SESSION: 2019-2020

MAJOR DISEASES OF
SORGHUM AND BAJRA.
 COURSE TITLE:
 COURSE NO.: APP 5311
 COURSE CREDIT: 3(2+1)

SUBMITTED TO: SUBMITTED BY:

Dr. B. P. KATLAM SONAM CHANRAKAR DR.
VIKAS SINGH B.Sc.(Ag.) III YEAR
Dept. of Pathology
 CONTENTS
S.R. TOPIC PAGE
NO. NO.

1. Introduction of Sorghum 01
2. Grain smut of Sorghum 01-03
3. Loose smut of Sorghum 03-04
4. Long smut of Sorghum 04-05
5. Head smut of Sorghum 05-08
6. Introduction of Bajra 09
7. Downey mildew of Bajra 09-10
8. Ergot of Bajra 11-12
9. References 13
 INTRODUTION

BOTANICAL NAME: Sorghum bicolor

FAMILY: POACEAE

 Sorghum is one of the main

staples for the world's poorest
and most food-insecure
people.
 The crop is genetically suited
to hot and dry agroecologies
where it is difficult to grow
other food grains.
 These are also areas subject
to frequent drought. In many
of these agroecologies,
sorghum is truly a dual-
purpose crop; both grain and
stover are highly valued
outputs.
 In large parts of the developing world, stover represents up to 50 percent of the
total value of the crop, especially in drought years.
 Sorghum grain ranks 5th in cereals for global production.

MAJOR DISEASES OF SORGHUM

1. Grain smut/Kernel smut / Covered smut / Short smut:

CAUSAL ORGANISM: Sphacelotheca sorghi

Symptoms:
 As a rule, the ovaries are attacked and the majority of the grains in an ear are converted
into smut sori.
 Generally the ovary is replaced by an oval or conical dirty-grey sac, which is surrounded
by the unaltered glumes at the base.
 Subtending the sac and the glumes of the spikelets, the smut sorus is covered by a tough
membrane and remains intact without rupturing early.
 The interior of the sorus is completely filled with the spore powder except a slender,
sometimes curved, central column of hard tissues.

The column is called columella and is hollowed into depressions at the surface. Sometimes,
the stamens develop normally, but more often they are either involved in the sorus or are
absent.
 Stamens involved in sorus are represented by three conical protrusions from sides of the
sorus.
 In certain sorghum-varieties,
the elongated sacs are not
formed and the smutted
grains appear that of normal
shape and size, and are full
of smut powder.
 This condition easily escapes
notice hence acts as a
dangerous source of
contamination of healthy
grains during threshing.
 In such cases the covering of
the sorus is generally
reddish.

FAVORABLE CONDITION:

Perennation:

 The pathogen is externally seed-borne.

 smut sori are broken during threshing and the smut spores get lodged on the The surface
of healthy seeds.
 They remain dormant until the next growing season when they germinate with the
germination of seed.

Predisposing Factors:

 Temperature plays an important role in the infection and spread of the disease.
 A temperature of 20°-30°C (around 25°C on average) and medium-to-low soil moisture
are very much conducive to maximum infection and disease development.
 Therefore, the infection occurs best on slow germinating seeds checked by cold.

Grain Smut Disease Cycle:

primary infecton: externally seed born and systemic

Secondry infection: wind born sporidia
 The primary infection takes place between the time of germination of the seed and the
emergence of the seedling above ground.
 The mycelia, which arise from the sporidia (basidiospores) after dikaryotization,
penetrate the young tissues of the shoot.
 Entry of the mycelium takes place through the mesocotyl.
 No outward effect is produced unless and until the ear is formed.
 The hyphae accumulate in the immature ovary, and ultimately the smut spores are
formed, which completely fill up the ovary, converting it into smut sorus.
 Around the smut sorus, the membrane is tough and may persist until after harvest.

Management of Grain Smut Disease:

(i) Clean seeds selected from cobs free from smut sori should be preferably sown.

(ii) Since the disease in externally seed-borne, seed treatment with solar energy and with
suitable fungicides are quite effective.

(iii) In solar energy treatment, the seeds are soaked in water at ordinary temperature during
summer for four hours in the morning and then spread out in the sun or shade to dry. This
treatment of seed has been proved effective in Uttar Pradesh.

(iv) In fungicidal treatment, steeping the seeds in 0.5-3% formalin for two hours followed by
quick drying, in 3% solution of copper sulphate for 15 minutes followed by drying and
sowing are very effective recommendations.

2. Loose smut/ kernel smut:

CAUSAL ORGANISM:Sphacelotheca cruenta

Damage symptom:

 The affected plants can be

detected before the ears come out.
 They are shorter than the healthy
plants with thinner stalks and
marked tillering.
 The ears come out much earlier
than the healthy.
 The glumes are hypertrophied and
the earhead gives a loose
appearance than healthy.
 The sorus is covered by a thin
membrane which ruptures very
early, exposing the spores even as the head emerges from the sheath.

Transmission
The pathogen is externally seed borne.

Favourable conditions
Optimum environmental conditions for maximum infection include: temperatures between
20 and 25°C and slightly acidic soils favour the disease developments.

Management:
 Treat the seed with Captan or Thiram at 4 g/kg.
 Use disease free seeds.
 Follow crop rotation.
 Collect the smutted ear heads in cloth bags and bury in soil.

3.Long smut:
CAUSAL ORGANISM: Sporisorium ehrenbergii 
Symptoms:
 Long smut appears as elongated, cylindrical, slightly curved sori, longer than normal
grain.

 The sori have a whitish thin membrane that ruptures to release black powdery mass of
spore balls that can be easily blown by the wind.

 The long smut sori are much longer (2-

4 cm) than those of covered kernel
smut, and these are unevenly
distributed on the panicle unlike the
covered kernel smut sori.

 Each sorus contains 8-10 longitudinal

filaments (remnants of the vascular
 elements of ovary) and teliospores are held between the filaments and the membrane wall
and bury
In soil.

Transmission
The pathogen is externally seed borne.

Favourable conditions
Optimum environmental conditions for maximum infection include: temperatures between
20 and 25°C and slightly acidic soils favour the disease developments.

Management:

 the seed with Captan or Thiram at 4 g/kg.

 Use disease free seeds.
 Follow crop rotation.
 Collect the smutted ear heads in cloth bags and bury in soil.

4.Head smut:
CAUSAL ORGANISM:
Sphacelotheca reiliana

Hosts and Symptoms:

 Sporisorium
reilianum causes the
diseases maize
head smut and sorghum
head smut.
 This soil borne smut
fungus has two formae
speciales. S. reilianum f.
sp. reilianum is specific
to sorghum and S. reilianum f. sp. zeae is specific to maize
 It is unknown why the two formae speciales cannot form spores on their respective non-
favored hosts.
 Symptoms of the fungus are expressed on both the tassels of corn and sorghum as well as
on the actual ear in the form of large smut galls.
 When the sorghum tassel is infected, the fragile gall membrane will have a range from
just a few black spores to a large mass of black spores covering the tassel.
 The spores are a sign of the disease and are used for dispersal of the disease to other corn
and sorghum plants.
 When the ear of the corn is infected, it looks very small and tear-drop shaped and seems
as though it does not have a cob inside at all.
 The cob is replaced by white sori which are the structures that make and hold the spores
of the fungus.
Disease cycle:
 Sporisorium reilianum is noted to have a sexual stage in its disease cycle similar to that
of Ustilago maydis. 
 Initial infections occur on roots of young seedlings.
 The pathogen develops systemically and is found on ear and tassel tissues as the host
plant matures.
 At maturity teliospores can be found in the white sori of the infected heads of corn.
These will be easily dispersed by the wind.
 Favorable nutritive soil and weather conditions around 23-30 °C allows for germination
of the teliospores in the soil.

 Generation of a four-celled basidium occurs, leading to haploid basidiospores that

create sporidia.
 These sporidia fuse due to a compatibility or likeness that induces the formation of
dikaryotic mycelium, which is infectious and parasitic.
 This intracellular mycelium can be found invaded in parts of the flowering development
of the corn, and S. reilianum can completely decrease floral tissue due to an ability to
detect floral induction.
 reilianum is biotrophic in that it depends on the maize or sorghum for growth and
survival.
 The inflorescence of the male or female parts of the plants, female being the ear and the
male being the tassel can be affected by the timing of infection by this species.
 Necrosis and disease development is most prevalent on the head of the infected host.

Management:
 Hybrids vary in their susceptibility/resistance to the fungus that causes head smut.

 Since infection occurs in seedlings, seed treatment fungicides may be used in areas with
a high incidence of the disease.

 Planting date may also be altered in some areas, planting earlier to avoid the optimal
temperatures for teliospores germination.

INTRODUCTION OF BAJRA (PEARL MILLET)

BOTANICAL NAME: Pennisetum glaucum

FAMILY: POACEAE
 Bajra popularly known as Pearl millet, cattail millet or bulrush belongs to the family
 Graminea.
 The crop is cultivated for grain as well as for fodder in the arid region of Africa and Asia
and as a pasture in U.S.A. It is originated in India or Africa.
 It is grown all over India except Assam and part of northeast India.

MAJOR DISEASES OF BAJRA

1. Downy mildew/ green ear :

CAUSAL ORGANISM: Sclerospora graminicola

Symptoms:
 Infection is mainly systemic and
symptoms appear on leaves and
inflorescence.
 The initial symptoms appear in
seedlings at three to four leaf
stages.
 The affected leaves show
patches of light green to light
yellow colour on the upper
surface and the corresponding
lower surface bears white
downy growth of the fungus
consisting of sporangiophores
and sporangia.
 The yellow discolouration often
turns to streaks along veins. As
a result of infection young
plants dry and die ultimately.
 Symptoms may appear first on the upper leaves of the main shoot or the main shoot may
be symptom free and symptoms appear on tillers or on the lateral shoots.
 The inflorescence of infected plants gets completely or partially malformed with florets
converted into leafy structures, giving the typical symptom of green ear. Infected leaves
and inflorescences produce sporangia over a considerable period of time under humid
conditions and necrosis begins.
 The dry necrotic tissues contain masses of oospores.

Favourable Conditions:
 Very high humidity (90%).
 Presence of water on the leaves.
 Low temperature of 15-25˚C favor the formation of sporangiophore and sporangia.

DISEASE CYCLE:
 The oospores remain viable in soil for 5 years or longer giving rise to the primary
infection on seedlings.
 Secondary spread is through sporangia produced during rainy season. The dormant
mycelium of the fungus is present in embryo of infected seeds.

Management:
 Deep ploughing to bury the oospores.
 Roguing out infected plants.
 Adopt crop rotation.
 Grow resistant varieties WCC-75, Co7 and Co (Cu)9.
 Treat the seeds with Metalaxyl at 6g/kg.
 Spray Mancozeb 2 kg or Metalaxyl + Mancozeb at 1
kg/ha on 20th day after sowing in
 the field.
2. ERGOT OF BAJRA:
CAUSAL ORGANISM: Claviceps fusiformis

Symptoms of Ergot Disease:

The disease occurs only at the time of flowering. Small
droplets of a light, honey coloured dew-like substance
exudes from infected spikelets. A few too many
spikelets may be found in a group which darkens with age and small, greyish or dark brown
sclerotia are formed. These sclerotia replace the ovary or grain and are about 0.5-1.0 cm in
length. They are hard and woody.

FAVORABLE CONDITION:

 High humidity in and around the field at the time of infection is considered the most
suitable condition for the severity of the disease.
 It is because the disease spreads very rapidly through secondary inoculum (conidia)
during such environmental condition.

Perennation: These are the sclerotial bodies which help pathogen perennate from season
to season. They remain in the soil or with plant debris, overcome the unfavourable
circumstances, and germinate in favourable conditions during the next season producing
ascospores to cause primary infection.

HOSTS:

The fungus infects various collateral hosts like other species of Pennisetum, Cenchrus
ciliaris, and C. setigerus producing ergot.

The role of these collateral hosts in the perennation of the pathogen may also be significant.

ERGOT DISEASE CYCLE:

Primary Infection:

 Primary infection on healthy crop plants is brought into being after the sclerotia
germinate in about a month’s time.
 The sclerotia germinate producing stripes, which bear perithecial heads that contain
many perithecia embedded in them. Perithecia represent the fruiting bodies of the fungus
and produce many asci inside. No paraphyses have been reported.
 Asci, however, contain filiform, hyaline, septate, thin walled, ascospores (eight in
number in each ascus) which get disseminated when the wall of the asci are burst-open.
 The disseminated ascospores, then fall on spike and under suitable conditions, germinate,
enter inside the ovary, and cause primary infection.
Secondary Infection:

 These are the conidia produced during primary infection which represent the secondary
inoculum (source of secondary infection) for the current season.
 The conidia are contained within the honey dew-like exudate. The latter are taken away
by insects which, when they sit on other plants, spread the conidia on them.
 The conidia germinate there and cause secondary infection. In this way the secondary
infection is insect-borne.

Management of Ergot Disease:

(i) Long crop rotation programme essentially helps avoid the disease incidence as this makes
the pathogen inocula present in soil wait the proper host for a long length of time. In the
mean-time many of the soil-borne inocula (mainly the sclerotia) become unviable.

(ii) The most commonly used method to control this disease is using clean seeds. For this,
the seeds are soaked in 20-30% salt solution. The sclerotia come on to the surface of the salt
solution and float. Floating sclerotia can be collected by hand and destroyed.

(iii) Repeated ploughing may reduce the viability of deep buried sclerotia in soil.

(iv) Resistant varieties should preferably be grown.

REFERENCES
 Singh R.S.; Plant Diseases; 6th edition, Medtech publications,
 Thind T.S.; Diseases of Fruits and Vegetables and their Management; Second edition
2016, Kalyani Publication, New Delhi.
 http://millets.res.in/books/DISEASES_OF_MILLETS.pdf
 http://agropedia.iitk.ac.in/content/downy-mildew-pearl-millet
 http://vikaspedia.in/agriculture/crop-production/integrated-pest-managment/ipm-for-
cerels/ipm-strategies-for-sorghum/sorghum-diseases-and-symptoms
 http://agritech.tnau.ac.in/crop_protection/crop_prot_crop
%20diseases_cereals_sorghum.html
 https://www.slideshare.net/vikaskrdhiraj/disease-of-sorghum