Prevalence of chickpea wilt in Jammu sub-tropics

Fortnightly surveys of different chickpea growing areas of Jammu sub-tropics revealed that overall disease incidence of 15.64 and 16.86 per cent, during Rabi seasons of 2016-17 and 2017-18, respectively. Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceri was isolated from wilt infected chickpea plants and soil samples collected from chickpea fields of Jammu sub-tropics. Pathogenicity test of different isolates of Foc exhibited disease incidence (6.26-66.65%) in susceptible cultivar (C-235). Wilt symptoms in adult plants were quite common at flowering and pod stages. The affected plants showed characteristic wilting viz., drooping of the petioles, rachis and leaflets.