When it comes to farming, one of the biggest challenges Indian farmers face is protecting their crops from various diseases. Fungi, bacteria, viruses, and parasites can cause serious damage if not managed properly. In this guide, we’ll explore common crop diseases and effective ways to tackle them for healthier yields.
Fungi:
Pathogenic fungi are the typical agricultural problem. According to research, fungi destroy about one third of all crop foods. This disease usually spreads through the plant’s wounds, stoma and water pores. Moreover, the fungal spores can also spread from crop to crop via wind. Symptoms of this include spots on leaves, rot, anthracnose, ulcers and curling of leaves and warts.
Fungi can also affect the growth of the plant and contribute to its abnormal burst. Ways to manage this disease include destroying plant matter that is infected, regular crop rotation, using healthy seeds and spraying the crops with biological fungicides. If you need more information on crop protection, you can use any fasal app that will not only keep you informed about crop protection but will also give you access to crop care products that you may need.
Bacteria:
The most common infection in agriculture are diseases caused by bacteria and at the same time preventing and controlling the disease can be quite a challenge. The bacteria usually targets the crop’s tissue. The bacteria can enter the plant through natural holes or glands or even through damaged areas of the plant. Signs that you crop has been infected by a bacteria include vascular wilting, necrosis, soft rot or tumour. Managing the spread of bacteria through the crops can be quite difficult since the disease is quite contagious and it infects the insides of the plant but some of the measures that you can take to control the spread of bacteria through the crops include spraying and taking sanitary measures such as weed control, sterilising tools and proper waste disposal. A change in temperature or high levels of humidity can increase the spread of bacteria through the crop, reading agricultural news can help you know more about good weather conditions for farming so that you get a good yield.
Virus:
Crop diseases caused by viruses aren’t as common as some of the others on this list, but they can cause irreversible damage to the crops, once the plant is infected there is no way to save the plant. In most cases a healthy crop gets infected when it comes in contact with a sick crop through the soil. Other ways through which the disease spreads includes through the seeds, pollen and insects.
Symptoms of a viral infection in a plant include malformation which is the abnormal growth of shoots and the distortion of leaves and flowers; necrosis which is the appearance of annular spots and stripes on the plant and wilting; discoloration of the plant and dwarfism which could be seen in a specific part of the plant or the whole plant.
As mentioned before, once the crop has been infected by a virus, you can’t save it but you can take precautions such as cultivating resistant crops, indexing, determining the absence or presence of viruses that are not mechanically transmitted. Incase your crops have been infected, you will have no choice but to destroy the entire crop culture or you can quarantine the infected plants to save the rest of the crop yield.
Parasites:
Parasites are considered one of the most dangerous plant pests. They latch onto a host, usually it’s vascular system, and extracts the host’s nutrients, water and other organic compounds. In most cases, a parasite only weakens its host and only extracts enough for both of them to survive but sometimes it can kill the plant which could pose a severe economic threat to agriculture.
There are different ways in which you can control these pests. One of this method is suicidal germination where you cultivate the soil to create favourable conditions for the parasite, in the absence of a host these parasites will die. You can also spray herbicides which will prevent the parasite from attaching itself to the crops. Apart from this, manual weeding also works very effectively
In conclusion, effective disease management while doing kheti badi is important for farmers so that you can protect your crops from fungi, bacteria, viruses, and parasites,which ensures you grow healthy crops. Take these precautions and keep your crops safe.