Vol. 12, Issue 8 (2023)

Author(s):
Rahul V, Mallikarjun Kenganal, Govindappa MR, Sreedevi S Chavan, SR Doddagoudar and Ravikumar A

Abstract:
Rust of chickpea caused by Uromyces ciceris-arietini is an obligate pathogen and is an economically important emerging disease of chickpea influence by climate change factors. It causes drastic reduction in grain yield of the crop worldwide. In the current study effort was made to map the spatial distribution of the chickpea rust occurring severely in Northern Karnataka for the past five years. The survey programme conducted in different chickpea growing areas of Northern Karnataka along with GPS credentials done during rabi 2021–22 revealed that, the rust mean severity ranged between 15.15 to 52.49 per cent across the places surveyed. Among the 12 districts surveyed, the highest average severity was noticed in Koppal, (52.49%) district followed by Ballari (50.53%) and Anantapur (48.86%) districts, whereas, lowest average disease severity was observed in Kalaburagi (14.20%) and Yadgir (15.15%) districts. Similar climatic conditions across Northern Karnataka during late rabi were found favouring the chickpea rust disease. The neighbouring Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh also had high disease incidence. The typical symptoms recorded with high severity among the cultivars grown across the surveyed plots concluded that none of the cultivated cultivars are resistant to chickpea rust. There was drastic reduction in active photosynthetic areas of infected chickpea plants and was responsible for drastic yield reduction. It is evident from the findings that there is need to identify effective chickpea rust disease management strategies and resistant cultivars from within the genus or outside.