Tundu disease of Wheat

Tundu disease of Wheat:-

Pathogen:- Clavibacter (= Corynebacterium) tritici

Symptoms:-

> The early symptoms of tundu disease are wrinkling of lower and twisting of the middle leaves generally evident when the crop is reaching maturity. This is followed by curling and twisting of spikes.

> What happens actually is that a bright yellow sticky slime exudes mainly from the ear and envelops it. 

> In addition, the slime trickles down to glumes, stem, and leaf sheaths and envelop them. The slimy substance becomes deeper yellow, hard, and dry in dry weather resulting in retardation of plant growth and distortion of stem and ear.

Management:-

i. As soon as the symptoms appear, the infected plants should be uprooted and burnt.

ii. Seeds not contaminated with nematode galls should be sown preferably in non-infected fields. Seeds can be made gall-free by soaking them in strong solution of common salt (solution called ‘brine’) prepared at the rate of 40 lb. salt dissolved in 25 gallons of water. The galls float on the surface of the solution and are removed. This method is the most effective one and recommended strongly.

iii. In tropical countries, summer ploughing helps destroy bacteria and nematodes occurring in soil by heat and desiccation and thus reduces disease incidence in the next season.