Fungicide control of Stenocarpella Maydis in the Nigerian Savanna

Abstract

A survey of farmers' fields in the Savanna zone of Nigeria in 1999 indicated the presence of stalk and cob rots of maize at incidence rates of 15 – 43% and disease severity of 2.0 – 6.7. The causal organism was identified as Stenocarpella maydis ( = Diplodia maydis). S. maydis was found to reduce seed germination by up to 29.2%. Laboratory and screen house experiments were used to evaluate the efficacy of six seed treatment fungicides indicated that Luxan (a local fungicide of unknown composition), benomyl (Benlate) and mancozeb (Dithane M-45) were more effective than metalaxyl + carboxin + furathiocarp (Apron-plus), carbendazin + maneb (Delsene M) and tetramethylthiuram disulphide + hexachlorobenzene (thiram + HCB) in controlling S. maydis. Stalk rot severity increased with increasing fertilization rates.

Keywords:

• Stalk and cob rots
• Stenocarpella maydis
• Zea mays
• Fungicides

Acknowledgement

We are grateful to Auta Audu, Abdulrahman Ahmed and Titus Ochibe for technical assistance, Sasakawa Global 2000, Nigeria for partially funding the survey and to Danladi Jarma for data analysis. We sincerely thank the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments on the manuscript.