Question

What are the control measures taken in the case of tikka disease of groundnuts?

Answer 1

Groundnut, also known as peanut, is a legume crop belonging to the family Fabaceae. It is found mostly along the tropics and subtropics and used as edible seeds. They are capable of carrying out nitrogen fixation like most other leguminous plants and thus are valuable to the soil.

Complete answer:
Tikka disease of groundnut also known as the leaf spot disease is a fungal disease caused by two genera of the fungus Cercospora , Cercospora arachidicola and Cercospora personata. The early symptoms of the disease are the appearance of brown spots along with a yellow halo in a few leaves. Late symptoms of the disease include the appearance of black spots in most leaves. The factors that might lead to tikka disease are heavy dew, prolonged low temperature and the use of chemical fertilizers. Taking control measures to prevent the spread of the disease is really important. The early infection can be controlled by the following ways-
1. Getting rid of infected plants by either burning them or burying them.
2. Utilizing crop rotation.
3. Seeds of groundnuts present within the shells can be disinfected using sulphuric acid and the seeds without shell can be disinfected using copper sulphate solution.
4. Raw seeds dressed with Agrosan GN can also reduce infection.
5. Infected parts of the plants can also be removed using running scissors.
But in case of late infection, control of the disease can only be brought about by using fungicides.

Note-
Groundnut is an economically important crop since it is rich in proteins, fats and other nutrients as well as in cosmetic and textile industries. So destruction of the crop can cause harm to the economy thus care must be taken to keep the plant disease free.