About the disease

Bacterial blight is a major disease in most of the pomegranate growing regions of Karnataka, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh. It reduces crop yield significantly and affects the market value of fruits.

The disease is caused by Xanthomonas axonopodis pv punicae, a yellow pigmented, gram-negative, short rod-shaped bacterium. The bacterium survives on infected plant parts in soil for a very long time and spreads through rain splashes, irrigation and through farm tools. Humidity more than 50%, temperature ranging from 25 to 30C, and rainy season are conducive for Xanthomonas infection. Through secretion of special proteins, Xanthomonas is able to destabilizes the defense responses of plants and elicit infection. On leaves, Xanthomonas infestation causes water-soaked lesions that coalesce and turn black in color with an oily appearance (hence the name “oily-spot” disease). The affected leaves turn yellow and fall off. The pathogen also affects flowers, branches and fruits. Affected flowers fall off resulting in reduced fruit set. The disease is severe during the fruiting season. Affected fruits exhibit heavy water soaked necrotic lesions which leads to fruits turning black in color, cracking, splitting and rotting. Currently spraying of crops with antibiotics at doses sometimes above 500 ppm is being practiced with limited success for controlling the disease.

BioBlight Testimonial - Success Story

Testimonial from Mr Chetan Nandhan, a successful and progressive farmer from Chickballapur, Kolar District, KA

I am Chetan Nandhan from Chickballapur, Kolar District, KA. I have been growing pomegranate since 2018 on my 80 acres pomegranate farm. Like other farmers, I also had a very bad experience in orchard due to bacterial blight disease. I have lost valuable crops in the past due to this dreadful disease and had difficulty in marketing the affected fruits. I have tried many chemical treatment regimens and have sprayed heavy doses of popular antibiotics, sometime at spray concentrations more than 1000 ppm. These treatments have weakened my trees and made them more susceptible to further attack by Xanthomonas.

During this period I have met Mr. Ramu Timalapur, a well sought-out field advisor on pomegranate cultivation from Hiriyur (KA) who introduced me to various bio-products of Gokulam Biotech, such as BioBlight, WMF (Wilt Management Formula) and bio- fertilizers such as phosphobacterium and potash mobilize. Since then we have been buying these products directly from Gokulam Biotech situated at Pondicherry. I have been spraying Bioblight continuously in my orchard from 2018 and enriching the orchard soil with biofertilizers. This has resulted in tremendous improvement in health of soil and our pomegranate trees.

In my farm, I commenced spraying of Bioblight @ 2 to 5 ml per liter of water from the resting stage of the crop and from the first watering onwards, at 10-to 15-day intervals. I follow this spray schedule religiously till harvest. Totally I carry out about 6 to 8 sprays during the cropping season. While Bioblight has not eliminated Xanthomonas spread in my orchard completely, it has definitely kept the infection under control and I was able to harvest fruits with minimum percentage of rejections due to bacterial spots on the fruit.

I have also learnt from Mr Ramu and Senior Scientists at Gokulam Biotech that besides spraying BioBlight, one should also improve soil/plant health and make sure nutrients are made available to plants in a well-balanced manner. Maintaining a well-balanced nutrient profile in cell sap of foliage plays a major role in plants resistance/susceptibility of plants to disease. Imbalanced nutrient profile in cell sap is a predisposing factor for Xanthomonas infection.

I wish the R & D team at Gokulam Biotech all the best in developing new generations of BioBlight and other bio-products for the benefit of farmers in general and pomegranate farmers in particular.

Author

R. Chetan Nandan Kamala Farms, Chickballapur Kolar District, KA Ph:+918971434966; Email: [email protected]

PDF Report

Download the PDF report. We thank Mr. Chetan Nandhan for writing this testimonial.