Plant Disease Management - Part 1

What follows is a short discussion on plant disease management in farms. I have used data from varying sources. An excellent resource for the subject can be found here. Here are some key points.

Some typical plant diseases in rice - courtesy e-KrishiShiksha  

Plant disease management takes planning - you can minimize the damage and the effort required to control disease if some early planning is done before you plant your seeds or prepare a nursery. If a farmer makes an attempt to study the crop that is being planted he will be able to create a proactive plan that will handle several kinds of diseases simultaneously. Farmers need to know the causes, mode of spreading and control over diseases to be able to devise a good plan. Some key issues to understand are -

• The source of disease
• The mode by which the disease impacts the plant
• The mode of transmission
• The effect of the environment

Stopping spread of disease - once the disease takes hold, further spread can only be stopped if the propagation cycle of the disease is broken. Once again, this implies detailed knowledge of the disease cycle and the manner of its spreading.

Individual farm initiatives may not work - it is a sad fact of farm life that you can not isolate your field from your neighbors. Water will flow across, dust will fly, germs will spread and insects will cross over all the time. Therefore, it must be accepted that any effort you put in would seldom yield optimal results. However, an innovative farmer can adopt a number of solutions that may make sense. You could rotate your crops, plant a different crop from what is being planted in the neighborhood and stagger your planting so that your crop is at a different stage of growth as compared to others.

Cultural methods  -  if enough information is available, farmers can take proactive steps to minimize the spread of disease. (My take is that we must take these steps even if complete information is not available). These consist of three main steps -

• Select disease free sowing material
• Implement practices that minimize possibility of disease
• Field sanitation and preperation

I have just started my own farm in Chitrakoot District of Uttar Pradesh India. While it will take time to shine and glow, I intend to take it forward one step at a time. You can visit my farm site here. Any comments welcome.