Zea mays L. (Poales) is one of the most important cereal crops belongs to Poaceae family with very high potential for yield. Production of maize is hampered by a major constraint and devastating disease banded leaf and sheath blight caused by Rhizoctonia solani f. sp. sasakii. The experiment was conducted to evaluate the maize genotypes under field conditions at CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Regional Research Station, Karnal (India). A set of fifty seven genotypes (hybrids/inbred lines) were screened against banded leaf and sheath blight during kharif 2020 and 2021 under artificial epiphytotic conditions. The severity of banded leaf and sheath blight was recorded following 1-9 scale and genotypes evaluated categorized into four groups viz., resistant, moderately resistant, moderately susceptible and susceptible based on their disease reaction. Out of fifty seven genotypes screened against BLSB, eight inbred lines viz., HKI 161, HKI-163, HKI-193-2, HKI-288-2, HKI-295, HKI-488, HKI-1344 and HKI 1352 (58-9-2)-2 found resistant and seventeen maize inbred lines were moderately resistant, whereas two hybrids (HQPM-4 and HKI-1040-7 x HKI 659-3) showed resistant reaction and ten maize hybrids were moderately resistant. Thus, these resistant/ moderately resistant maize genotypes can be further use in maize breeding program to develop durable BLSB resistant varieties.

Rhizoctonia solani f. sp. sasakii (RSS) is a highly devastating soil-borne fungal pathogen inciting banded leaf and sheath blight (BLSB) disease in maize. In India, annually one percent of the total maize yield is reduced by BLSB. Due to continuous occurrence and wide spread of disease, the present experiment was conducted to assess the pathogenic variability among different isolates obtained from multi-geographical locations of India. Pathogenic behaviour of each isolates was predicted through the comparable study of their incubation period, average disease score and disease intensity on the three maize hybrids (Normal maize- HM 8, QPM maize- QPM 9 and sweet corn- HSC I). The incubation period of all the R. solani isolates ranged from 3 to 7 days with average disease score ranged from 2.1 to 7.1depending upon the host and isolate interaction after artificial inoculation. Disease intensity of all the RSS isolates on maize hybrids varied from 8.1 to 52.1% while isolates RSS 29 (New Delhi) and RSS 1 (Karnal) were found highly virulent, in comparison to other forty nine RSS isolates. As these isolates were highly virulent on maize hybrids with average disease score ranged from 6.2 to 7.1, whereas the isolates RS 30 (Dholi) and RS 31 (Dhaula Kuan) were recorded as least virulent, showed resistant disease reaction with average disease score ranged from 1.5 to 2.4.