One hundred and one rice genotypes were evaluated for response to sheath blight disease under greenhouse and lowland irrigated field conditions in Guyana. The level of resistance varied from highly resistant to resistant in 14 genotypes over five experimental trials. These genotypes were also observed with low area under the disease progress curve values and slow blighting reactions against artificial inoculation of the pathogen. Genotypes GR1568-31-9-1-1-2-1 and cultivar Rustic had susceptible reactions in all experiments. Additive main effect and multiplicative interaction analysis was used to study the genotype and environment interactions. The analysis revealed that 52.98% of the total sum of square was attributed to genotype effect, 7.50% was attributable to environment effect, and 39.52% was attributable to genotype by environment interaction (G × E) effects. The G × E was almost as large as the genotype effect, thus indicating significant differences of genotypes across the testing environments. This revealed that resistance was slightly influenced by the G × E. The genotypes that showed stable resistance in all environments in this study could be used for breeding the sheath blight resistance in rice.

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Rice is one of the most important crop planted on earth. It provide food and employment for thousands of persons daily through out the world. In Guyana the rice industry is one of the largest user of agricultural lands and contributies more than 20% to the country gross domestic product (GDP). The rice crop is known to suffer from several biotic and abiotic factors. Of which rice blast (P. oryzae) and sheath blight (R. solani) disease identified as two of the most devastating disease affecting the rice cultivation in Guyana. In this context, the present critical review article entitled 'Managing the imminent danger of Rice Blast (Pyricularia oryzae Cav.) and Sheath Blight (Rhizoctonia solani Kühn) Disease' was taken up to look at the most practical disease management approaches available and can be utilized to mitigate the imminent threat pose by the rice blast and sheath blight disease. The review will focus on: disease resistant screening and understand the genotype and environment interactions; study the expression pattern of proteins in resistant and susceptible genotypes against blast pathogen (P. oryzae); examine the efficacy of botanicals, biocontrol agents and new generation fungicides against blast and sheath blight disease under different conditions. This will form a foundation for the exploration of the various disease management stratigies for blast and sheath blight disease.

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Background: Blast is a devastating disease in rice production. The current research tested the efficacy of biologicals and fungicides against blast. Aqueous extracts of Azadirachta indica, Ocimum basalicum, Cymbopogan flexousus, Thymus vulgaris, Aloe vera, Tagetes patula, Cordia curassavica, Aegle marmelos, Allium fistulosum, Syzygium aromaticum, and Calotropis gigantea were tested in vitro at 5, 10, and 15% concentrations against Magnaporthe oryzae. Also, two isolates, Bacillus cereus OG2L and B. subtilis OG2A, and one isolate, Azotobacter SAG19, and, similarly, five new generation fungicides were evaluated at three different doses against blast pathogen M. oryzae in vitro. The treatments that exhibited the best performance in vitro were further evaluated against blast disease under field conditions.Results: Extracts of T. patula (5%), C. gigantea (5%), C. curassavica (10%), A. fistulosum (10%), and A. marmelos (15%) showed greater than 81% inhibition to M. oryzae in vitro. Likewise, all three biocontrol agents, viz. B. cereus OG2L, B. subtilis OG2A, and Azotobacter SAG19, demonstrated more than 50% inhibition of mycelial growth of pathogen in vitro, and the commercial formulations of fungicides Propineb, Trifloxystrobin+Tebuconazole, Tebuconazol+Triadimenol, Bacillus subtilis Strain QST 713, and Cinnamon Oil 8%+Clove Oil 2% also significantly inhibited M. oryzae. Under field conditions, C. curassavica (10%), A. marmelos (15%), C. gigantea (5%); B.cereus OG2L; B.subtilis OG2A; Proineb and Trifloxystrobin+Tebuconazole were effective in reducing disease in addition to yield enhancement.Conclusion: Overall, the plant extracts (C. curassavica at 10%, A. marmelos at 15%, C. gigantea at 5%); bio-agents (B. cereus OG2L, B. subtilis OG2A both at 2g/l), and new generation fungicides Antracol 70WP (Proineb) at 2.5 g/l and Nativo 75 WG (Trifloxystrobin+Tebuconazole) at 0.5 g/l provided effective control against blast disease and superior plant growth and yield compared with other treatments and untreated control.