Eco-Friendly Approaches for Managing Leaf Blight of Taro (Colocasia esculenta var. antiquorum)

Seed cakes of three plant species and three plant extracts were tested for their capacity to reduce the disease incidence, per cent disease intensity, coefficient of disease index and increased the cormel yield of taro crop. The most effective treatment was two foliar spray of Azadirachta indica leaf extracts with minimum disease incidence (72.18 and 72.73%), per cent disease intensity (26.81 and 25.41) and CODEX (19.35 and 18.48) during Kharif 2006 and Kharif 2007 respectively, which was significantly superior over soil application of cakes of Azadirachta indica seeds, Madhuca longifolia seeds, Brassica juncea seeds and foliar application of tulsi leaf extract (black), tulsi leaf extract (green) and garlic bulb extracts. The highest cormel yield (128.01 and 127.12 q/ha) was obtained in the plots treated with two foliar sprays of neem leaf extracts @ 10% followed by two foliar sprays tulsi leaf extract black @ 10% (113.41 and 113.29 q/ha), two foliar sprays of tulsi leaf extract green @ 10%, two foliar sprays of garlic bulb extract @ 10%, Azadirachta indica cake @ 10q/ha, Brassica juncea cake @ 10q/ha and Madhuca longifolia cake @ 10q/ha during 2006 and 2007, respectively.