DISEASES IDENTIFICATION

AND MANAGEMENT

CIRILO G. MAATA
Farm Supervisor / eGBU TWG
Office of the Provincial Agriculturist
Ecopark, Upper Turno, Dipolog City, Zamboanga del Norte
 Contributing factors…
Non living factors (abiotic)
(70%) Living (biotic) (30%)

✓Temperature ✓Fungi
✓Soil moisture ✓Bacteria
✓Light Intensity ✓Viruses
✓Nutrient availability ✓Nematodes
Environmental Pathogen
✓Chemical toxicity condition ✓Mollicutes
✓Soil pH

Susceptible Disease!
plant host 2
Always check abiotic factors

Boron
deficiency

Chemical toxicity

Sunscald Calcium deficiency 3

Plant disease symptoms

✓Less productive
Deformed
✓Poor vigor leaves
✓Poor root system Shoot blight
✓Poor quality fruit
Leaf
✓Stunting or death Canker blight
✓Low or no yield Fruit spot
✓Low or no profit
Fruit rot

Leaf spot
Vascular wilt
Wilt
4
Root rot
Disease Symptoms
Fruit spots Wilting Yellowing

Leaf spot Rot Mosaic

5
Diagnostics
Not all plant problems are caused by fungi, bacteria or virus
Consider all possible causes – environmental and insect stress

•Identify parts affected

•Identify symptoms
Check for •Look for biotic agents
symptoms and
signs
•Compare with known disease
•Check pattern of infection and amount of infected plants
•<30% low, 30-50% moderate, >50% high
Observe pattern •Check in neighboring fields
of infection

•Review crop history

•Review weather
Understand practices
and environment
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Diagnostics from leaf problem

Leaf

Yellowing Mosaic Spots

Uniform Veinal Viral Bacteria

Fungi
Abiotic 7
Diagnostics from fruit problem

Fruit

Spot Deformed or
Rot mottled

Raised Sunken Blossom end Virus

Bacteria Fungi Calcium/stress

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Diagnostics from stem problem

Stem

Collar rot Blight Spots

Bacteria
Fungi

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Diagnostics from root problem

Root

Rot Galls Pale colour

Fungi Nematode Bacterial wilt

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Diagnostics from whole plant

Whole
plant

Wilt with no
Wilt with yellowing yellowing Stunted growth

All Localize Bacterial No bacterial Root No root

d ooze ooze galls galls

Fungi or Bacteria Nematode

nematode Fungi
Abiotic
Viral
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 Fungi

For more information and description on Fungi

FUNGI-CROP PROTECTION
12
 Common fungal diseases

For more information and description on Fungi.

FUNGI-CROP PROTECTION
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Fusarium wilt
✓ Bitter gourd, tomato, pepper, eggplant, watermelon
✓ Lower leaves wilt and yellow first
✓ Then yellowing on upper leaves and eventually plant
wilts and dies
✓ Roots brown and decayed
✓ Cool conditions conducive for development
✓ Seed transmission possible

Control and Management

✓ Resistant varieties
✓ Clean soil
✓ Drenching with carbendazim (Systemic fungicide with
protective and curative action)
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Fusarium wilt in tomato

15
Sclerotium rot or Southern blight

✓ Tomato, eggplant, pepper, legumes

✓ Mycelia on stem base
✓ Yellowing leaves
✓ Infected plants wilt and die

Control and Management

✓ Sanitation and crop rotation
✓ Deep plowing/flooding
✓ Drenching with metalaxyl (Systemic
fungicide with protective and curative
action; absorbed through leaves, stems,
and roots
Sclerotia 16
Gummy Stem Blight

✓ Pumpkin, watermelon, muskmelon,

cucumber, bottle gourd and bitter gourd
✓ V-shape lesion starts in the leaf edges
✓ Causes stem wilt and death
✓ Seed-transmitted and soil-borne

Control and Management

✓ Field sanitation
✓ Protective spray with Chlorothalonil,
Mancozeb,
✓ Curative spray with Azoxystrobin

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Early Blight

✓ Tomato
✓ Dark-gray and water-soaked leaf lesions
with concentric rings
✓ Develops under hot and dry conditions

Control and Management

✓ Remove infected leaves
✓ Soil sterilization
✓ Spraying with fungicides mancozeb,
iprodione, chlorothalonil

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Powdery Mildew

✓ Cucumber, ridge gourd, bottle gourd,

bitter gourd, pepper, tomato, eggplant
✓ Powdery white mold on the upper
surface of leaves
✓ Leaf lesions red brown on the lower
surface of leaves and yellow on the
upper surface

Control and Management

✓ Field sanitation, crop rotation
✓ Avoid shade
✓ Chlorothalonil. azoxystrobin
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Leaf Mold
✓ Tomato
✓ Upper leaf - pale yellow spots with no
distinct margin
✓ Lower leaf – gray to black spores
✓ Leaves wilt
✓ Air-borne
✓ Rainy season & cool temperature

Control and Management

✓ Avoid dense planting especially during
rainy months
✓ mancozeb+copper hydroxide,
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chlorothalonil, difenoconazole
Cercospora leaf spot

✓ Pepper, tomato, bitter gourd, bean ,

melon, other cucurbits
✓ Affects leaves and stems
✓ Leaf spots pale brown, circular with
white centre
✓ Leaves yellow and fall
✓ Wet conditions and warm temperature
✓ Air-borne

Control and Management

✓ benomyl followed with chlorothalonil;
copper-based, mancozeb, maneb 21
It’s not easy to distinguish foliar diseases on a single cucumber leaf

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Typical lesion caused by Cercospora

White spot on the lesion center (frog-eye

symptom)

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Anthracnose

✓ Pepper, watermelon, onions, melon,

bean
✓ Humid conditions
✓ Distinct margins (except for onion)
✓ Lesions with concentric rings

Control and Management

✓ Field sanitation & crop rotations of 2-3
years
✓ Pathogen-free seed
✓ benomyl, mancozeb, copper
oxychloride

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Anthracnose on cucurbit leaves

Lesions with cracks and/or holes

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Oomycetes or water molds

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Damping off

Pathogen attacking root, crown, or

stem resulting in seedling rotting and
collapse

Four fungi cause damping off and root rot

1. Pythium spp.
2. Rhizoctonia spp. FUSARIUM

3. Phytophthora spp.
PHYTOPHTHORA
4. Fusarium spp.
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Damping off

● Can affect all the seedlings

● Drench with captan fungicide
or treat ( coat ) the seed of
0.2 to 0.4 % captan .
● Spray fungicides propamocarb
hydrochloride and
carbendazim
● Clean seedling trays after use
or soak in the 10 mg / L
chlorine
● Avoid prolonged wetness of
the whole plant
● Expose the seedlings in the 28
sun
Phytophthora Blight
✓ Pepper
✓ High temperature & excessive soil moisture
✓ Infect leaves, stems and fruits
✓ Dark green to dark-brown water-soaked
lesions
✓ Young seedlings wilt and die

Control and Management

✓ Crop rotation
✓ Avoid use of furrow irrigation
✓ Preventive application of copper and
chlorothalonil
✓ Curative spraying with fosetyl-Al or
metalaxyl 29
Late Blight
✓ Tomato, potato
✓ Leaves, stems, fruits and roots affected
✓ Initially water-soaked irregular lesions on
leaf becoming dark gray
✓ Sunken, dark gray irregular lesions develop
on the fruit
✓ Rainy season, cool weather

Control and Management

✓ Use of healthy seed
✓ Avoid work in rain
✓ Preventive application of metalaxyl and
mancozeb, fosetyl-Al
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Downy Mildew
✓ Bitter gourd, cucumber, melon
✓ Initially pale yellow lesions
✓ Lesions purple gray in advanced stages
✓ Low temperature and high humidity
✓ Overlapping of crops in the same family
or related in the nearby areas
✓ Leaf wetness in the evening for several
hours

Control and Management

✓ Field sanitation
✓ metalaxyl, maneb, propineb, mancozeb
✓ Resistant varieties
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Conditions for fungal infections
Damping off

Early blight Anthracnose

Late blight Downy mildew

Powdery mildew Fusarium wilt N +++ pH 5

Phomopsis blight Phytophthora blight

Cercospora Gummy stem blight

Relative Humidity Plant Doctor East-West Seed 32

General control of fungal diseases
✓ Resistant/tolerant varieties
✓ Disease free seeds
✓ Removal of infected plants and debris
✓ Crop rotation
✓ Destruction of alternate hosts
✓ Clean tools
✓ Good drainage and land preparation
✓ Spacing
✓ Avoid wet leaves in evening
✓ Correct application of preventative and curative fungicides

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 Bacteria

For more information and description on Bacteria

Bacteria A
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Bacteria

• microscopic organisms that are generally single-celled

• can survive on crop residue, seed tubers, volunteer plants,
in the soil or in water
• can be spread mechanically or through water, insects or
through infected planting materials
• causes leaf spots and blight, soft rots, wilt, overgrowths,
scabs and cankers.

Photo Source: AICAF (Japan)

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General control measures for bacterial diseases

• use of resistant varieties

• use of healthy seeds or transplants
• removing and burning of infected plants or branches
• decontamination of tools and hands after handling diseased plants
• adjust watering and fertilization
• crop rotation with nonhost plants
• use of foliar spray and copper compounds (for spots)
– zineb, maneb, or mancozeb mixed with copper compounds

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Bacterial Wilt
✓ Solanaceous, some cucurbits (pumpkin, squash)
✓ wilting of whole plants that normally starting at
shoot apex
✓ browning of the vascular tissue in base of stem
✓ bacterial ooze

Control and management

✓ Crop rotation for at least 3-5 years
✓ Use of resistant/tolerant variety
✓ Use of resistant rootstock in grafted seedlings
✓ Remove infected plants
✓ Mustard cultivation within crop rotation

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Bacterial wilt

Bacterial ooze
Vascular
browning

@LysetteTL @LysetteTL
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Bacterial Spot
✓ tomato, pepper
✓ dark brown small spots (leaves) and
yellowing of leaf margins
✓ fruits - water-soaked brown dots that
develop into scabby spots slightly raised in
the center

Control and management

✓ Use clean seed
✓ Spray copper-mancozeb mixture (2x week)
✓ Use resistant varieties

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Bacterial speck of tomatoes

Symptom: A small spot that are surrounded by yellow halo. Later on these spots coalesce
together. It normally infect the leaf, stem and fruits.

Management:
- Used resistant varieties
- Copper based fungicide
- Field sanitation, Avoid irrigating late in the evening. 40
- Clean seeds and seedling
 Virus

To Learn more:

Viral diseases identification, management a

nd control
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Viruses

• tiny molecules - seen only through electron microscope

• depend on other organisms for survival and reproduction
• can cause dwarfing, yellowing, curling, mottling, etc.
• transmitted mechanically, by seed, and by insect vectors

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Control measures for viral diseases

• use of resistant varieties

• use of virus free seeds
• protect plants from virus vectors
• use of plastic mulch
• Attractants and insect traps
• Insecticides
• Insect nets
• remove host weeds

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Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus (TYLCV)

✓ crop affected - tomato

✓ leaf curling, twisting, dwarfism, inter-veinal yellowing

✓ white fly
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Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV)

✓ tomato, pepper

✓ mosaic on leaves and narrowing of leaf tips

✓ Occasional wilt of stems and leaves

✓ transmitted by seed, soil through debris of infected plants, and

mechanically 45
Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus (TSWV or Tospovirus)

✓ tomato, pepper and legumes

✓ yellowing of leaves and wilt of leaf tips

followed by brown lesions on leaves

✓ fruits distorted with irregular raised lesions

✓ transmitted by thrips

46
Papaya Ringspot Virus (PRSV)

✓ papaya, watermelon, bottle gourd…

✓ Mottling, vein banding

✓ leaf curling and deformation

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Cucumber Mosaic Virus (CMV)

✓ cucumber, pepper, watermelon,

eggplant,

✓ mosaic on leaves

✓ necrosis on the stems and leaves

✓ necrosis and sunscald on the fruits

✓ wide host range

✓ transmitted by seeds and aphids

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Zucchini Yellow Mosaic Virus (ZYMV)

✓ Symptoms & Characteristics

✓ Crops affected - squash, watermelon

✓ Leaves - initially yellow spots or vein clearing followed

by distinct mosaic, large lobation and malformation

✓ Fruits - dark green warts and malformation

✓ Not transmitted through seeds but can be transmitted

by aphids

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Namamarako (Cucurbit Aphid-Borne Yellows Virus)
✓ Bitter gourd
✓ Thick ‘plastic’ leaves
✓ yellowing patches in older leaves
✓ predominantly male flowers
✓ vein banding; growth stunting
✓ transmitted by aphids

Control and management

✓ crop rotation
✓ use insecticide to control aphid

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Tomato Chlorosis Virus (ToCV)/ Tomato Infectious
Chlorosis Virus (TICV)

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Virus transmitted by aphid
190 aphids species are known to transmit virus diseases.

Cucumber Mosaic Virus Cucurbit yellow virus

Papaya ringspot ✓ Regular monitoring

✓ Pruning heavily infected parts

✓ Yellow traps
Zucchini yellow mosaic
✓ Preventative spray of neem

✓ Plastic mulch

✓ Imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, dinotefuran

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 Whitefly

✓Regular monitoring
✓Removal of host weeds and old crops
✓Yellow sticky traps
✓Timely application of pesticides –
Imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, dinotefuran
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Transmitted virus by whitefly

Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus Squash Leaf Curl Virus

Golden Bean Virus Begomovirus Virus

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Thrips

✓Regular monitoring
✓Removal of host weeds and old crops
✓Yellow or Blue sticky traps (monitoring only)
✓ Flooding area prior to planting
✓Timely application of pesticides – Imidacloprid,
Thiamethoxam, Dinotefuran 55
Thrips

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Nematodes

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Nematodes

● The nematodes are small

and appear as worm
● Attack the root of the plant
● Inflammation of the
nerves: little branches ,
deformed leaves, little
flowers are just some of
the symptoms
● Spread by water
contaminated equipment
or people

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Nematodes

Host crops:
● Cucurbits
● Solanaceous
● Other plants (carrot, okra)

Management and Control:

● Use of resistant seed / variety /
rootstock , if any
● Crop Rotation
● Enhance the structure of the soil
by putting soil amendments (Ca,
phosphate, K, organic fertilizer
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● Biofumigation
Thank you