Haryana Agricultural University experts find new disease in millet

Hisar, October 15

Scientists of Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University (HAU), Hisar, have identified a new disease in millet crop which is caused due to ‘Klebsiella aerogenes’ bacterium at the international level. Such a disease in millet has been discovered for the first time on the global platform.

American Phytopathological Society (APS) based at USA has accepted the presence of this disease in millet crops and have recognised it to be a new disease. The APS has published about this new disease in their journal ‘Plant Diseases’. Vice-Chancellor Dr BR Kamboj said that the university scientists have started working for the containment of this disease. Soon, they will make efforts towards its prevention at the genetic level.

Director of Research, HAU, Dr SK Sehrawat said scientists spotted the disease for the first time in the kharif 2018 season. “It took three years to identify the disease. It has been found in up to 70 per cent millet crop in the state, mainly in the fields of Hisar, Bhiwani and Rewari,” he said. University’s plant pathologist Dr Vinod Kumar Malik, who is the main researcher in discovering this disease, said the initial symptoms of this disease appear in the form of long stripes on the leaves and soon, the stripes on these leaves increase.

“Thereafter, watery lesions appear on the stem which later turns brown to black. On investigation at the morphological, pathogenic, biochemical and molecular level, it has been proved that bacterium Klebsiella aerogenes is the cause of this disease,” he said. — TNS