Maize Case Study

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I INTRODUCTION
Maize (Zea mays L.) is an important cereal crop all over the world. It ranks third in world production after wheat and rice, however, based on productivity, this crop ranks first followed by rice and wheat. It is high yielding, easy to process, readily digestible and cheaper than other cereals and used as a basic raw material for the production of starch, oil, protein, alcoholic beverages, food sweeteners and more recently as biofuel.
The area under maize is spreading rapidly because of its productivity and adaptability to a wide range of environments. Globally, maize is known as queen of cereals because it has the highest genetic yield potential among the cereals. The adaptability of maize to diverse environments is unmatched …show more content…

In the state, maize is grown over an area of 13.22 lakh ha with a production of 34.75 lakh tones with an average productivity of 2629 kg ha-1 (Anon., 2013). The major maize growing districts of the states are Davanagere, Haveri, Belagavi, Bagalkot, Shivamogga, Bengaluru Rural, Bellary, Vijayapur, Chamarajnagar, Chitradurga, Kalaburgi, Dharwad, Gadag, Kolar and Mysuru. Area under maize is increasing rapidly in the state because of congenial environment, high yield and ease with which the crop is cultivated. Thus, there is scope to increase maize productivity in Karnataka to a global level of 49.20 q/ha (Anon., 2013).
In the tropical maize growing regions, a range of biotic stresses such as diseases, insect pests and weed Striga spp. were widely encountered. Among these stresses cultivation of high yielding hybrids were threatened by fungal diseases. There were about 112 diseases infects this crop. Out of which 61 have been reported in India. These include seedling blight, stalk rots, foliar diseases, ear rots and downy mildews (Renfro 1970; Payak and Sharma, 1982). There were ten downy mildew pathogens reported on maize in different parts of the world (Smith and Renfro, 1999; Spencer and Dick, …show more content…

A survey conducted in Karnataka revealed that the incidence of disease ranged from 10 to 90 per cent and yield loss upto 30-40 per cent (Krishnappa et al., 1995).
Sorghum downy mildew can be controlled through host resistance, cultural practices, and chemical controls. Approaching disease control in an integrated manner greatly enhances the probability of success. With the integrated approach, the development of genetically resistant maize inbreds to be used for the development of resistant hybrids will provide efficient control of the disease in maize. Studies on the genetics of downy mildew resistance suggests that, it has a complex and polygenic nature and additive effects predominantly contribute to the resistance (Geetha and Jayaraman, 2002, Yen et al., 2004; Nair et al., 2004 and 2005). Keeping in view of this the present investigation was carried out to understand the genetics of resistance and develop an integrated method to manage the disease to combat losses due to disease with the following

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