Author(s): P. Tripathy, D. Patel, B. B. Sahoo, A. Priyadarshini, S. K. Das and D. K. Dash

Abstract: For commercial cultivation of onion, both thrips and foliar diseases play the key role in reducing the bulb yield and quality of produce. Among the various foliar diseases affecting leaves and bulbs, purple blotch incited by Alterrinari porri, while thrips among the insects are the most devastating & prevalent in many parts of India including Odisha. This is more important due to change in climatic conditions during the growing season. The study on management of foliar diseases in onion conduced during rabi season of 2010-11 and 2011-12 revealed significant variations among the treatments with respect to disease incidence, disease severity, thrips populations and bulb yield (marketable & total yield). Significantly minimum disease incidence (74.26 % and 68.17 %), severity (54.25 % and 31.25 %), thrips plant-1 (33.50 and 17.79) , marketable bulb yield (19.58 tha-1 and 13.75 tha-1 ) as well as total bulb yield (27.95 tha-1 and 24.88 tha-1) was recorded with spray schedule of mancozeb @ 0.25% + methomyl @ 0.8g litre-1, tricyclazole @ 0.1% + carbosulfan @ 2 ml litre-1 to be and hexaconazole @0.1% + profenofos 1ml litre-1 at 30, 45 and 60 dat (t4) during 2010-11 and 2011-12, respectively. The next best recommendation was application of mancozeb @ 0.25% + methomyl @ 0.8g litre-1, propiconazole @ 0.1% + carbosulfan @ 2 ml litre-1 and copper oxychloride @0.25 % + profenofos 1mll-1 at 30, 45 and 60 dat (t3) in onion. Thus, it may be concluded that in onion combined application of insecticides and fungicides not only reduces the incidence of foliar disease and thrips infestation but also increases bulb yield instead of their sole application..

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