TY - BOOK AU - Devi Krishna P AU - Sunil K M (Guide) TI - Effect of weather on sheath blight incidence in rice and predicting potential epidemics under various climate change scenarios U1 - 551.6 PY - 2016/// CY - Vellanikkara PB - Academy of Climate Change Education and Research KW - Climate Change Education and Research N1 - BSc-MSc (Integrated) N2 - Several pathogenic diseases have been found to occur on the rice crop resulting in extensive damage to the grain yield and straw yield. The crop subjected to attack by many diseases caused by fungi, bacteria, viruses and nematodes which cause annual loss to the tune of 12-15 per cent of the total production. Major rice diseases under Kerala conditions are bacterial leaf blight, sheath blight and blast. Among these diseases, the sheath blight which was earlier considered to be a minor disease is now causing a major threat to the rice cultivation. Sheath blight is an important soil-borne fungal disease which causes 10-30 per cent yield loss (Xie et al., 2008). It may reach up to 50 per cent during favorable years especially when susceptible cultivars are grown (Prasad and Eizenga 2008). The disease manifests initially as water soaked lesions on sheaths of lower near water level. Sheath blight, caused by Rhizoctonia solani Kuhn has become an important disease of rice, especially in intensive production systems. From the epidemiological viewpoint, rice sheath blight shares characteristics with other diseases caused by Rhizocionia spp. In that the primary inoculums is mainly soil-borne while secondary inoculums does not consist of spores, but is predominantly in the form of mycelia strands produced by primary lesions that run on the surface of leaves and sheaths to establish new lesions. As a result, epidemics usually exhibit a very strong spatial aggregation (Savary et al., 1995). Objectives of the study were to Study the effect of various weather parameters and climate change on incidence and development of sheath blight disease of rice and evaluation of disease forecasting models for sheath blight of rice. The field experiments were conducted during May 2016 to October 2016 at the Regional Agricultural Research Station of the Kerala Agricultural University at Pattambi, Palakkad district, Kerala. Crops transplanted June showed a higher disease incidence compared to other dates of planting. Variety Jyothi is more susceptible to sheath blight incidence compared to Kanchana. The effect of weather on LAI significantly varied with the variety. The number of grains per panicle was significantly varied with varieties. The effect weather on grain yield was significant. Under dry land condition the sheath blight disease incidence was not observed even after artificial inoculation. The effects of weather and varieties on sheath blight incubation period were significant. EPRICE model developed by Savary et al., (2012) was used to forecast the disease severity of sheath blight disease in rice after transplanting. The model works on daily weather parameters particularly rainfall, maximum and minimum temperature, morning and afternoon relative humidity. RMSE for Jyothi prediction is 0.248.This shows that the predicted sheath blight severity was in good agreement with the observed values. So this model can be used for forecasting the rice sheath blight severity under Kerala conditions. The future climatic projections have taken from Ensemble of 17 General Circulation Models (GCMs). The future carbon dioxide concentrations and climate data has been incorporated into disease simulation model-EPIRICE and predicted the future disease incidence possibility of sheath blight for the years 2030, 2050 and 2080 in all the 14 districts of Kerala. The impact of climate change on sheath blight severity in the various districts of Kerala showed an increasing trend. Southern districts are highly prone to sheath blight disease as compared to northern districts. Considering the major rice growing tracts of Kerala Alappuzha will be more prone to sheath blight than Palakkad and Thrissur UR - http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810141414 ER -