Bacterial Blight of Vegetable Pea

Causal organism: Pseudomonas syringe pv. pisi

Symptoms

• This disease affects all above-ground plant parts. Seedlings from infected seed may die. The affected leaflets have small, round, oval or irregular spots of reddish brown colour with translucent centre with a darker brown margin.
• Several spots merge to produce blight appearance.
• Chocolate brown linear streaks on stems and petioles.
• Pods are chocolate brown, thin, twisted and shriveled.
• Pod surface are glossy due to dried bacterial ooze.
• Seeds become discoloured and shriveled.

 

Bacterial blight of vegetable pea

 Control

• Always sow healthy seeds procured from disease-free crop or certified seeds.
• Invariably discard discoloured and shrivelled seeds and give a pre-sowing seed dip in Streptocycline solution (1g/10 liters of water) for 1-2 hours.
• Give a spray of Streptomycin (0.01%) on appearance of first symptoms of the disease and repeat after 7 days, if necessary.
• Follow a 3 years crop rotation.
• Practice sanitation, keep proper drainage and give appropriate spacing between plants.