An Economic Spray Schedule for the Control of Rice Blast

Abstract

The rice varieties IR50 and TKM-9 were raised in the second season favourable for blast. Treatments were in the form of seed treatment, nursery treatment or both in seedling stage and followed by two fungicidal spray in the mainfield at tillering and late booting along with a need based application and a control for comparison. All the treatments were found to be better than the need based and untreated control in recording a lower incidence of blast and a higher yield in both the varieties. It is observed from the present experiment that for susceptible varieties, need based application is not sufficient as it is in par with untreated control in all respects. A minimum protection not only reduces blast, but also helps in increansing the yield, even in a susceptible variety