Chillies diseases and their control
Chillies diseases and their control
Chillies diseases are the same as those found on tomatoes, peppers and brinjals. The reason is that they are all from the same family of crops. Most small scale farmers do not have the necessary industrial spray equipment to control chilli diseases effectively but that is no reason that hand sprays do not work. Hand sprays and back sprays are affordable and cheap to maintain and careful application of chemicals can offer just as good control. What is important is when walking through the crop one should look carefully where you spray so any other disease is also noticed. It is often found that the more one walks and scouts the more effective disease control becomes.
Powdery mildew (White rust)
- Disease: It is caused by the fungus Oidiopsis taurica and is especially present during warm, humid conditions. The disease can affect the plant significantly and cause total leaf loss.
- Control: Use vine sulphur or wettable sulphur when the first disease symptoms are noticed or spray weekly with Benlate.
Bacterial Spot
- Disease: Cause by Xanthomonas vesicatoria and is noticable as small brown spots on the leaves
- Control: Apply chemicals as soon as the first sign of the disease appears. Because the leaves fall of easily as a result. Spray with any chemical that contains copper oxychloride and Zineb (64% copper oxychloride and 20% Zineb). The mixture must be used immediately and not left overnight in the spraying tank
Bacterial wilt
- Disease: It is caused by the organism Pseudomonas solanacearum. At the moment there is no practical control method
- Control: No control method yet. The best practice is to stop activities that spreads any disease throughout the farm. Limit the spread of dead plant material. Wash gloves. Limit movement between fields. Do not let representatives walk around the farm with their own boots. Give them boots to wear from the farm. They must also wash their hands when entering the farm.
Sclerotium wilt
- Disease: It is caused by the fungus Sclerotium rolfsii. There is no chemical control for this disease.
- Control: Again limit activities that help the spread of fungi and diseases on the farm
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About the Author: Antonius
I studied agriculture at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa in 1984 and completing my M.Sc Agric. in 1998. . My love for "Controlled Environmental Agriculture" (CEA), started in my third year when I was exposed to the Welgevallen Research Station. There Prof. P.C.Maree showed us what hydroponics and vegetable farming consisted of. It was awesome. There were no large tractors involved, no dusty fields, no uncontrollable storms to destroy your crop (well that is what I thought).
Since then I put hydroponics and other aspects of horticulture to much better use, not just farming. We solved pollution problems by cleaning mines effluent with hydroponics and permaculture. They were used to remove toxic metals to produce clean water (which we sold and make more money of than the produce). What I learned from 1987 I tried to compile in this website and I hope it is from some value to the serious commercial farmer that wants to take the journey into Commercial Farming.
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Keyword Index
Application
Bacterial blight
Calculations
Chemicals
Climate
Control
Cultivars
Cultivation
Fall Armyworm
Fertilization
Fungi
Harvesting
Herbicides
Irrigation
Management
Nutrient uptake
Nutrition
Organic
Pesticides
Pests
Planting
Products
Salt stress
Seedlings
Soil
Substitution
Varieties
Virusses
Weed control
