Screening of Varieties Resistant to Sugarcane Smut Disease Caused by Sporosorium scitamineum under Sub- tropical India

Sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) is an important commercial crop, cultivated across the world in more than 90 countries including India. Diseases in sugarcane are mainly caused by fungi, bacteria, virus, and phytoplasma. Apart from the biotic factors nutritional imbalance is also responsible for various diseases. The major fungal diseases of sugarcane are red rot, smut, and wilt. The Smut of sugarcane is caused by the fungus Ustilago scitamineum. The first report of the disease incidence came from Natal, South Africa in 1877. Severe smut infection affects the sugar recovery as well as yield loss ranging from 10 to 70 per cent. The present study includes genotypes/varieties evaluation against smut disease (Sporisorium scitamineum) of sugarcane in sub-tropical region of India. The experiments were conducted in field condition during 2022-2023. Some total of 71 genotypes, maintained at ICAR-IISR, Lucknow. Three bud setts of each of the test genotypes were inoculated by dipping them in aqueous teliospores suspension (106/ml) for 30 minutes. Based on disease incidence of each genotype, these were categorized in five class intervals i.e., 0-1 (R), 1-10(MR), 10-20(MS), 20-30(S) & >30 % (HS) smut infection. Out of 71 genotypes tested, Forty five (45) genotype were rated as Resistant (R), Eight (8) genotypes were rated as Moderate Resistant (MR), Five (5) genotypes were rated as Moderate Susceptible (MS), and Ten (10) genotypes were rated as Susceptible (S) against smut disease of sugarcane. The genotypes rated resistant against smut of sugarcane can be exploited for development of smut resistant variety of sugarcane whereas rated susceptible genotypes can be exploited as susceptible check for screening against smut of sugarcane.