Author(s):

R Kannan, A Solaimalai, P Renganathan, T Sivakumar and K Murugavel

Abstract: Rice (<em>Oryza sativa</em> L.) is the staple food for more than half of the human population and India has the largest area of 42.75 million hectares) under rice cultivation with a production of 109.15 MT Rice cultivation is often subjected to several biotic stresses of which diseases like blast, sheath blight, stem rot and bacterial blight are the important ones Among these, sheath blight of rice caused by a soil-borne fungal pathogen, <em>Rhizoctonia solani</em> is a destructive disease in all crop-growing areas of the world. The losses due to sheath blight disease generally vary from 30 to 40 per cent and may be even 100 per cent in endemic areas the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides cause an incredible harm to the environment. These agents are both hazardous and may persist and accumulate in natural eco systems. Under such circumstances use of Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR) offer a promising means of controlling diseases and improve the yield in the rice ecosystem. In the present study the PGPR along with some of the organic amendments are tested against <em>Rhizoctonia solani. </em>The results revealed that the combination of <em>P. fluorescens </em>(Pf1) as seed treatment @ 10 g/kg of seeds, <em>P. fluorescens </em>(Pf1) as foliar spray (@ 0.2% on 30 and 45 DAT) and neem cake as soil application @ 250 kg/ha significantly reduced the sheath blight incidence to the minimum (10.01% in pot and 12.12% in field trial) at harvest with 81.42 per cent disease reduction over control. Hence the various methods of delivery system of <em>P. fluorescens </em>along with neem cake as soil application @ 250 kg/ha can be effectively used to control the rice sheath blight diseases.

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