Bacterial Leaf Blight of Rice and its management Technique

Disease name
Bacterial leaf blight (BB)
Pathogen
Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae


Signs and symptoms
• leaf blight
o Water-soaked to yellowish stripes on leaf blades or starting at leaf tips then later increase in length and width with a wavy margin
o Appearance of bacterial ooze that looks like a milky or opaque dewdrop on young lesions early in the morning
o Lesions turn yellow to white as the disease advances
o Severely infected leaves tend to dry quickly
o Lesions later become grayish from growth of various saprophytic fungi
• seedling wilt or kresek
o Observed 1-3 weeks after transplanting
o Green water-soaked layer along the cut portion or leaf tip of leaves as early symptom
o Leaves wilt and roll up and become grayish green to yellow
o Entire plant wilt completely
• yellow leaf or pale yellow mature plants
o Youngest leaf is uniform pale yellow or has broad yellow stripe
o Older leaves do not show symptoms
• Panicles sterile and unfilled but not stunted under severe conditions


Host range
Leersia sayanuka Ohwi, L. oryzoides (L.) Sw., L. japonica, and Zizania latifolia are alternate hosts of the disease in Japan. In the tropics, the disease is found to infect Leptochola chinensis (L.) Nees, L. filiformis (Lam.) P. Beauv., and L. panicea (Retz.) Ohwi. Cyperus rotundus L. and C. difformis L. are recorded as alternate hosts of the disease in India. In Australia, the disease is known to survive on wild rice, Oryza rifopogon and O. australiensis.


Factors favoring disease development
• presence of weeds
• presence of rice stubbles and ratoons of infected plants
• presence of bacteria in the rice paddy and irrigation canals
• warm temperature, high humidity, rain and deep water
• over fertilization
• handling of seedlings at transplanting

Management principles
Practicing field sanitation such as removing weed hosts, rice straws, ratoons, and volunteer seedlings is important to avoid infection caused by this disease. Likewise, maintaining shallow water in nursery beds, providing good drainage during severe flooding, plowing under rice stubble and straw following harvest are also management practices that can be followed. Proper application of fertilizer, especially nitrogen, and proper plant spacing are recommended for the management of bacterial leaf blight.
The use of resistant varieties is the most effective and the most common management practices adopted by farmers in most growing countries in Asia. When different strains of bacteria are present, it is recommended to grow resistant varieties possessing field resistant genes. Fallow field and allow to dry thoroughly is recommended.
Seed treatment with bleaching powder (100µg/ml) and zinc sulfate (2%) reduce bacterial blight. Control of the disease with copper compounds, antibiotics and other chemicals has not proven highly effective.

Training starts for Junior Technicians in Lumle, Kaski

Training program was initiated in RATC, Lumle in topic
" AGROBIODIVERSITY, ORGANIC AGRICULTURE AND TRAIN THE TRAINERS"
to Junior Technicians from 16 different districts of Western region, Nepal. The training programme is of 12 days.The training started from Baisakh 25 and will end on Jestha 6. Mr. Dipendra Pokharel, Crop Development Training Officer in RATC, Pokhara Training coordinator of this training had prepared a brochure and schedule of the training programme. For Training Chief Mr. Ganga Bahadur Thapa says the rules and regulations to be followed by the participants in the opening ceremony. Training coordinator Mr. Pokharel had annouced the opening programme.

The subject matter of this training is the first time in agricultural training center at Nepal. The objective of this training is to empower Junior Technicians from different districts to organize training programs in their communities for technology dissemination.and empower them with some ideas about agrobiodiversity and organic agriculture.

Women’s Role In Achieving Food Sovereignty .................

Majority of the Nepalese agriculture producers are women. They produce over 50 per cent of the food that we eat, and this scenario probably reflects in the other developing countries as well. Women are usually responsible for majority of the laborious farm operations like transplanting rice and weeding. In almost all the developing societies, rural women tend to work harder and longer hours than men.

Gender discrimination in Nepal varies with the locality, culture and their situation. They are not only involved in agriculture but also have a more fundamental role in nurturing and caring for the children and the elderly. Yet women in Nepal are restricted in their role as farmers by unequal access to and control over the resources. Only about 8 per cent of the women farmers in Nepal own land. Nepal is now in transition to a democratic republic. It is a great time to address all the problems of women, particularly those of rural women.

Equal rights for women have been agreed at international forums by the government of Nepal, however it has been slow to translate this into practice. The government of Nepal has made reservations for the women in the government and elsewhere but there is no entry of rural women in these spheres. The women from the urban areas are enjoying the reservations while the situation of the rural women continues to worsen.

Different priorities

Women farmers often have different priorities than their male counterparts, and this can, in many cases, be related to their direct role in feeding their family. In the rural areas of Nepal, traditionally men control the outside world and women the inside of the home. Such traditional perspectives can contribute to the lop-sidedness of "gender blind" information, collected by outsiders with the intention of helping a community.

It is usually the men who provide information to the outsiders. This means that women’s priorities are often overlooked, unless they are specifically taken into account. This also supports the view that the female farmers receive less extension services which are needed to transform their subsistence-based farming system to a more commercial one.

Access to and control over the resources are more of a power issue. They determine the power status of the persons who are concerned. Women in Nepal are constrained by resources like land, decision-making and other resources due to cultural, traditional and sociological factors.

Issues related to control and access to resources such as land, water and seeds, credit and market need to be scrutinised with special focus on gender. Unless women’s control over productive resources is reinforced - through individual or collective approaches - it is doubtful whether women farmers will continue to contribute to agriculture and food sovereignty with the same dedication that many Nepalese rural women still display.

Food is a hot topic these days. Given the growing population, there is more demand for food, yet climate change has aggravated the food balance scenario in Nepal and in the world. The concept of food sovereignty was coined by the international peasant movement la via Campesina. It refers to the right of the farmers to produce for him, his/her family and the nation.

In this, women and food are inseparably linked. We cannot imagine food sovereignty without the role of the women in the production of the food crops. Our interim constitution has also focussed on food sovereignty. Food sovereignty promotes community autonomy. But the political dimension goes contrary to food security. While the government has reserved seats for the women in the government and other service sectors, it is unfortunate that the problems of Nepalese farmers have been overlooked.

Food sovereignty

The concerns of rural women cannot be sufficiently addressed by merely resolving economic and livelihood issues. They also need to be addressed by enabling women to gain important social and political space both in the private and public domains. When women are given space and opportunities, they can become tremendously valuable leaders in restoring community cohesion, which ultimately leads to strengthened food sovereignty.

In the constitution that is being written, strengthening food sovereignty should be taken up simultaneously with strengthening the fight against suppression of women and degradation of the precious environment. This should lead to new social relations characterised by solidarity, respect, recognitions of diversity and solving the critical questions of inequality between men and women.

Leader farmer Training begins in RATC, Lumle

Training program was initiated in RATC, Lumle in topic
" Resource Youth Training of Traineres"
to leader farmers from 16 different districts of Western region, Nepal. The training programme is of 12 days. Mr. Basu Dev Paudel, Horticulture Training Officer in RATC, Pokhara Training coordinator of this training had prepared a brochure and schedule of the training programme.
The objective of this training is to empower leader farmers from different districts to organize training programs in their communities for technology dissemination.