Impact of Sooty Mold Disease on Behavioral Aspects of Mango Plants: A Case Study in CUTM Campus, Bhubaneswar

  • Sagarika Parida
  • Soumya Das
  • Gyanranjan Mahalik

Abstract

Mango plants (Mangifera indica L.)   suffer from several diseases and infestation of various pests and insects throughout the year and results in reducing the fruit yield. The most abundant and destructive are mango hoppers and mealy bugs. The sooty mold is one of the diseases caused by the fungus Meliola mangiferae and found to play a major role in bringing down the yield.  A survey was conducted during 2018-2019 at regular intervals to document important   diseases and pests associated with mango plants in the campus premises of Centurion University of Technology and Management, Bhubaneswar after noticing that all most all the leaves were covered with sooty mold fungus. Impact of diseases and pests on fruiting was also accessed during the survey.  Diseases like leaf spots, anthracnose and sooty mold were noticed on the leaves. Among these diseases, emphasis was given on sooty mold (Meliola mangiferae) as this fungus was the most prevalent in the campus and there by affecting the fruiting very seriously. It was found that the incidence of sooty mold was maximum of 87-95 % followed by anthracnose and Alternaria leaf spot with 15-27% and 10- 17 % respectively. It was also found that less than 5% of plants were affected by powdery mildew disease. Spraying of mango plants with strong stream of water and mild detergent spraying was found to be effective to control sooty mold disease.

Published
2019-09-21
Section
Articles