BLAST DISEASE OF RICE

Divison: Mycota
Sub division : Eumycotina
Class: Deuteromycetes
Order: Moniliales
Family: Moniliaceae
Genus: Pyricularia

Causal organism: Pyricularia grisea, earlier called Pyricularia oryzae

Perfect stage: Magnaporthe grisea

Host: Oryza sativa

Introduction
• Blast disease has been reported in almost 70 rice-growing countries of the
world.
• Leaf blast can kill rice plants at the seedling stage and cause yield losses in
cases of severe infection.
• It has, for a long time, been recognized as a major problem of rice
production in Japan, Taiwan, the USA, and many other countries.
• Losses due to blast may range up to 90% depending upon the part of the
plant infected.
• It a major disease of rice and is most destructive in South India, particularly
from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Orissa, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar
Pradesh and other rice growing areas of the country.
SYMPTOMS
• The disease produces brownish lesions and spots on leaves, leaf sheaths, culms
and panicles and finally the foliage may be completely blasted.
• Lesions on the neck of the culm and panicle branch bases result in typical “rotten
necks”.
• There are also nodal infections.
• The leaf spots are typically elliptical with more or less pointed ends.
• The color of the spot is usually grey or whitish and the margin is usually brown or
reddish brown. However, both the shape and color of the spots vary, depending
upon environmental conditions, the age of the spots, and the degree of
susceptibility of the rice variety.
• The spots are usually small, water-soaked, whitish, greyish or bluish dots.
• These spots enlarge quickly under moist conditions and are 1-15 cm long and 0.3-
0.5 cm broad and usually develop a brown margin.
• Spots on susceptible varieties growing under moist, shaded conditions show very
little brown margins but instead sometimes have a yellow halo around the spot.
• On highly resistant varieties, only small, brown specks, each of the sizes of a pin
head may be observed.
• Varieties with intermediate reaction show small, round or short elliptic lesions, a
few millimeters long with a brown margin.
• Brown to black spots or rings are formed on the rachis of the maturing
inflorescence.
• Ears may also show similar small spots.
• The most characteristic symptoms appear on the culm.
• The neck becomes shriveled and covered with a grey fluffy mycelium.
• The affected plants can very easily be identified by examining the
bluish patches on the neck or the stem.
• If the infection has occurred before grain formation, the latter is not
formed and the panicle hangs down.
• However, due to necrosis of neck tissues, the ear tends to break and fall
off. This stage of the disease causes maximum damage.
 CAUSAL ORGANISM
• Causal organism: Pyricularia grisea, Earlier called Pyricularia oryzae
• The perfect stage of the fungus is Magnaporthe grisea.
• The mycelium of P. grisea consists of septate, multinucleate, and branched
hyphae.
• Conidiophores single or in fascicles, simple, rarely branched, showing
sympodial growth.
• Conidia formed singly at the tip of the conidiophore at points arising
sympodially and in succession, pyriform to obclavate, narrowed towards tip,
rounded at the base, 2-septate, rarely 1 to 3- septate, hyaline to pale olive,
14-40 X 6-13 µm with a distinctly protruding basal hilum.
• Chlamydospores are often produced in culture, thick-walled 5-12 µm in
diameter.
• The conidia of P. grisea (oryzae) form appressoria at the tips of the
germ tubes when they germinate on the host plant or on a glass slide
or cellophane sheet.
• Appressoria vary in size and shape.
• They are smooth, thick-walled, ranging from 5-15 µm in diameter,
globose, ovoid or oblong.
• P. grisea consists of many Physiologic races, which differ in their
ability to infect rice varieties.
DISEASE CYCLE
• The blast disease is common where rice is grown.
• The fungus survives through hot dry month in the tropics and through
the cold winter in the sub-tropics and in temperate rice areas by dry
different means.
• One common method of survival is through the infection of collateral
hosts, such as sugarcane.
 Epidemiology
• The carry-over of the blast inoculum from one season to the next has not fully
understood, except perhaps in the northern hilly regions where the pathogen
can survive the winter in infected plant parts under snow. However, it is
doubtful whether the pathogen can survive in the infected plant debris or in
the soil through the hot and dry summer months in the principle rice growing
regions in the plains of India.
• Conidia from cultures could remain viable for four months to six months when
harvested from the host surface.
• The fungus could be easily isolated from infected seeds at the time of sowing
in the months of June or July.
DISEASE MANAGEMENT
• Culture methods- field sanitation and destruction of weeds are
precautionary method that should be followed. Apart from this, early
planting shows less disease than a late planted crop.
• Chemical methods: Fungicides such as copper fungicides ( Blitox,
Bordeux) and organo-mercurials (Ceresan, Agrosan).
• Seed treatment with Agarosan GN (organomercurial) is effective in
eliminating externally seed-borne inoculum.
• Disease resistant varieties- T-603, T-141, A-67, CH-20, ADT-20