Association of Panicle Mite with Sheath Rot Disease of Rice and Their Effective Management in Western Odisha

Sheath rot disease of rice is often found to be associated with other pests, making it difficult for the farmers to manage with only fungicides. The present study was conducted to know the exact cause of the disease in Western Odisha and provide a suitable management option with possible economic gain for the farmers. A location specific management strategy was formulated against the disease complex with high economic return. It suggests seed treatment with carboxin + thiram @ 0.75+0.75 g ai kg^-1 seed along with spraying of propiconazole 25 EC @ 125 g ai ha^-1 followed by fenpyroximate 5 EC @ 25 g ai ha^-1, twice at 15 days interval starting from panicle initiation stage which reduced the disease incidence by 67.6% and increased the yield by 35.3% over control treatment with highest BC ratio of 2.24. The same also resulted in the highest increase of healthy grains (44.5%), lowest discoloured grains (22.2%) and highest decrease of normal (45.8%) and discoloured sterile spikelet (52.5%) compared to untreated control.