Evaluation of field inoculation techniques for screening maize (zea mays) genotypes against banded leaf and sheath blight (rhizoctonia solani ) disease.

A field experiment was conducted during kharif season 2008 and 2009 at the Regional Agricultural Research Station, lam farm, Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University, Hyderabad to develop a suitable non damaging method for inoculating Rhizoctonia. solani which causes banded leaf and sheath blight disease in maize. Results revealed that inoculation with paddy straw method is superior to other methods as well as reported techniques and can be adopted on a large scale for evaluating maize germplasm against banded leaf and sheath blight disease.