Blast Disease of Millets: Present Status and Future Perspectives

Abstract

Millet crops are affected by various biotic and abiotic stresses. Among biotic stresses, blast disease caused by Pyricularia grisea (finger, pearl and proso millets) and Pyricularia setariae (foxtail millet) is the most devastating and widespread disease that causes substantial grain and forage yield losses and is a key constraint to pearl millet, finger millet and foxtail millet production in most of finger millet growing areas, and recently, it is also reported in barnyard millet in few locations. This book chapter emphasizes mainly on occurrence, distribution, symptoms, yield loss, etiology, genetic diversity, mode of spread of the pathogen and survival and integrated disease management approaches for mitigating of disease. This information will be highly helpful for better understanding of the disease. Further, it will be useful to enhance production and productivity of millets and to reinforce the food and nutritional security in the developing countries of Asia and Africa continents where the millets are mainly grown as staple food crops.

Pyricularia oryzae: Lab star and field scourge

“…Wheat blast, which emerged in South America in the 20th century and recently moved to Asia and Africa, causes similar symptoms to rice blast on leaves, but also induces massive spike bleaching (Ceresini et al., 2018 ; Cruz & Valent, 2017 ; Islam et al., 2016 ). The production of millets is also affected by blast disease, mainly in Africa and India (Gupta et al., 2017 ; Odeph et al., 2020 ; Poonacha et al., 2023 ). The infection of panicles (rice, finger millet) or spikes (wheat) by the fungus can lead to a complete loss of the harvest (Asibi et al., 2019 ).…”