Management of bract mosaic disease through higher dose of fertilizers in banana cv. Ney Poovan (AB).

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to find out the effect of increased doses of fertilizer on healthy and banana bract mosaic virus (BBrMV) affected plants of cv. Ney Poovan. The result showed that increased doses, i.e. 125 and 150% of recommended dose of fertilizer (RDF) have compensated the yield loss in BBrMV infected Ney Poovan plant crop. The disease was mitigated with higher dose of fertilizer application. But in ratoon crop, due to increased severity of virus infection, plants did not respond to higher doses of fertilizers. Days taken to flowering were more in virus affected plants than in healthy plants, irrespective of the fertilizer levels. With this investigation, it was concluded that the bract mosaic viral disease can be mitigated in plants of Ney Poovan banana with application of higher doses of fertilizer but not in ratoon crop. Hence, in Ney Poovan banana, even if plants develop viral symptoms after planting, the effect of disease could be mitigated with higher dose of fertilizers to get optimum yield, provided the vector population is managed through insecticides