Effects of Propiconazole (tilt) and pruning on severity of black Sigatoka disease and yield of plantain

Abstract

Pruning of diseased leaves and the use of Propiconazole (Tilt) - a foliar fungicide with systemic properties were two different recommendations made by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to control Black Sigatoka currently an important disease of plantain in the country. The two methods were evaluated at the University of Ghana Agricultural Research Station, Kade. Four treatments namely Tilt (0.125 g ai/1), Pruning, Tilt (0.125 g ai/1) + Pruning and Control (neither chemical nor pruning) were applied in a Randomized Complete Block Design experiment. Disease severity based on percentage total leaf area attacked was for the control treatment on the average 16% (13.1-19%) while it was 4.6% (2.9-6.2%), 5.1% (3.7-6.4%) and 3.8% (2.5-5.0%) for Tilt, Pruning, and Tilt + Pruning, respectively. The Control was significantly different from the other three treatment which were however not different from each other at 5 % significance level. The total number of bunches harvested after 66 weeks were 54, 50, 52 and 47 with bunch weights of 453.0 kg, 392.2 kg, 405 kg and 249.1 kg for Tilt, Pruning, Tilt + Pruning and Control, respectively. No differences were observed in the three main treatments but differences were noticed between them and the Control at 5 % level of significance. The difference in the bunch weight was due to the significant difference in the weight per finger (0.258 kg, 0.245 kg, 0.253 kg and 0.186 kg, respectively) for the treatments. There was no difference in the number of fingers per bunch, which was on the average 26.1 for all the treatments. Correlation analysis gave a negative but significant association (r = - 0.96) between severity of disease and yield. Simply pruning and burning of diseased leaves could be encouraged in the control of black Sigatoka in the absence of chemicals which may be expensive.

JOURNAL OF THE GHANA SCIENCE ASSOCIATION Volume 1 Number 3, July (1999) pp. 77-83