Effect Of Fungicides And Fungicide Mixtures On Some Important Diseases Of Rainfed Cowpea In Umudike.

ABSTRACT

Cowpea (var, IAR -48) was sprayed at weekly intervals with ridomil, benlate and ridomil + benlate mixtures for the control of lamb's tail pod rot disease, brown blotch, bacterial blight and cowpea mosaic disease. The experiment was conducted between April and July 2001, and the results showed that only in the case of the treatment of bacterial blight with ridomil + benlate fungicide mixtures, was disease incidence and severity significantly (P ~0.05) reduced by spraying. The high disease incidence ( 37.1-60.6% ) and severity ( 3.0 - 4.75 Tables 1-4 ) associated with untreated control plants in Umudike in the investigation may be due to the high temperatures (22° - 31°C) , rainfall (1800 - 2400mm ) and relative humidity (74- 80%) prevalent in the area. Benlate was more effective than ridomil alone and ridomil +benlate in the control of lamb's tail disease of cowpea.