Banded leaf and sheath blight (Rhizoctonia solani): An emerging malady in cultivation of nutricereals

Small millets are traditional grain crops have a long history of cultivation of more than 5000 years and widely grown in Indian subcontinent. They are the oldest food crops known to humans and possibly the first cereal grains to be used for domestic purpose. Being good sources of nutrients and phytochemicals, millets also sustain adverse climatic conditions thus helping to attain food and nutritional security. Banded leaf and sheath blight incited by Rhizoctonia solani Kuhn is one of the emerging malady in successful cultivation of millets. The pathogen has wide host range, most wide spread, destructive and versatile found in most parts of the world. R. solani is a species complex which includes several anastomosis groups (AGs) based on the hyphal fusion of different isolates which differ in their genotypic and phenotypic characters. Molecular approaches including DNA based sequence homology, restriction analysis of ribosomal DNA have been confirmed as reliable tools to differentiate isolates of R. solani into distinct clades. This review mainly focuses on the knowledge of several important aspects which includes importance of millets, banded blight disease, etiology of the disease and different control methods for the management of banded blight.