A serious and important disease that affects banana and got huge loss in its yield and growth. Some factors that are responsible for its cause and measures to eliminate this disease are briefly discussed.

1. 1.Panama Disease of Banana
Fungal Pathogen: Fusarium oxysporium
INTRODUCTION
 Panama disease is a plant disease of the roots of banana plants. It is a type of fusarium
wilt caused by the fungal pathogen Fusarium oxysporium. The pathogen is resistant
to fungicide and cannot be controlled chemically.
Two external symptoms help characterize Panama disease of banana:
 Yellow leaf syndrome, the yellowing of the border of the leaves which eventually leads
to bending of the petiole.
 Green leaf syndrome, which occurs in certain cultivars, marked by the persistence of
the green colour of the leaves followed by the bending of the petiole as in yellow leaf
syndrome. Internally, the disease is characterized by vascular discoloration.
 This begins in the roots and rhizomes with a yellowing that proceeds to a red or brown
color in the pseudostem.

2. These symptoms often get confused with the symptoms of bacterial wilt of banana, but ways to
differentiate between the two diseases include:
 Fusarium wilt proceeds from older to younger leaves, but bacterial wilt is the opposite.

3.  Fusarium wilt has no symptoms on the growing buds or suckers, no exudates visible
within the plant, and no symptoms in the fruit. Bacterial wilt can be characterized by
distorted or necrotic buds, bacterial ooze within the plant, and fruit rot and necrosis.
Disease cycle:
 Modern banana plants are reproduced asexually, by replanting the plant's basal
shoot that grows after the original plant has been cut down.
 The fruit contains no seeds, and the male flower does not produce pollen suitable for
pollination, prohibiting sexual reproduction.
Survival and spread
 The disease is dispersed by spores or infected material that travel in surface water.
 The fungus easily spreads from plant to plant because the individual plant’s defenses
are nearly identical.
INTEGRATED DISEASE MANAGEMENT
Cultural method

4.  Practice proper crop rotation with paddy/sugarcane once or twice followed by banana
for 2-3 cylces.
 Proper care should be given when planting susceptible cultivators
 Remove and destroy infested plant material after harvest
Grow healthy plants with proper fertilization, irrigation, weed control
 Provide good drainage especially during rainy season
Soil application of rice chaffy grain or dried banana leaf formulation or well decomposed
compost around the plants.
Mechanical method
 Machinery and equipment should be treated with a sanitary solution such as
Farmcleanser
 Footwear, which may have contacted banana plants or soil around banana plants
elsewhere, should not be worn on the farm.
 Provide mechanical barriers in and around the infected plants
Biological method
 Application Pseudomonas fluorescens @ 2.5kg/ha bactericide can also be applied along
with farmyard manure and neem cake.
 About 60 mg of Pseudomonas fluorescens (in a capsule) can be applied in a 10 cm deep
hole made in the corm.
 Application of bio control agents like Trichoderma viride @ 25 g for 4 times once at the
time of planting in the planting pit and remaining doses at third, fifth and seventh
month after planting
 Application of T.harzianum Th-10, as dried banana leaf formulation @ 10g/platn in basal
+ top dressing on 2,4,and 6 months after planting.

5. Chemical method
 Application of 2 per cent of Carbendazim as injection of Carbendazim 50 ml capsule
application.
 Paring (pralinge removal of roots and outer skin of corm) and dipping of the suckers in
clay slurry and sprinkled with Carbofuran granules at 40g/corm.
 Soil drenching of Carbendazim 0.2 per cent solution alternated with Propiconozole 0.1%
around the pseudostem at bimonthly intervals starting from five months after planting.
 Application of urea + sugarcane trash (250g/pit) followed by lime (1Kg/pit) and neem
cake (1-2Kg/pit)
 Application of neem cake @ 250 Kg/ha was most effecgtive in controlling Fusarium wilt
in Rasthali cultivar.

6. II. MOCO WILT OF BANANA
Casual organism: Ralstonia solanacearum
 Moko is a deadly disease of banana and plantains.
 Moko disease is a bacterial wilt caused by Ralstonia solanacearum invading the
vascular tissues of hosts.
 The disease affects all plant parts.
 Bacteria enter through roots, wounds and sometimes flowers. It
grows, spreads and blocks the flow of food and water. This prevents
proper growth.
 Affected plants show symptoms and finally die within a short time.
How is it spread?
 In infested plant parts root,trunk,bunch, fruit/peel, sucker, leaf.
 In infested soil (on shoes, hands, tools [e.g. forks/machetes/knives],
animals, runoff water).
 Wind, insects, birds and other animals that visit flowers carry one strain of
the disease. This strain will spread much more quickly.
COMMON SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS:
• Affected plants show rapid wilting and collapse of the younger leaves
• Later, these symptoms progress towards the older leaves
•The lower leaves develop a yellowish tinge which quickly spreads all over
the leaves
• Leaves acquire a tingly whitish-yellow appearance, become dry, flaccid and

7. readily droop around the pseudostem.
• Petiole breaks at its junction with lamina or pseudostem
• If the diseased suckers are planted, terminal leaf becomes necrotic and the
plant dies
PROBLEMS WITH SIMILAR SYMPTOMS:
 Panama wilt is often confused with moko disease.
 However, external symptom of panama wilt appears only after four
months. But in case of moko disease, it is seen right from the
beginning.
 The reddish tinge observed in case of Panama wilt is usually absent.

8.  INTEGRATED DISEASE MANAGEMENT:
 Inspect fields carefully each week for symptoms.
 If seen, mark the location and immediately report to the nearest RADA, Banana indus
Officer/Office.
Do not remove any sucker, corm, fruit or leaf from a field suspected of having the disease
 Sleeve the bunch and deflower early and break off the “Bull” as soon as the last hand is
 Use twine instead of sticks to prop plants.
 Disinfect all tools used in your field if you suspect that the disease is present. Use househo
9 parts water) after removing any soil or plant remains present on the tool.
 Disinfest shoes similarly, when coming from an infested field. A spray bottle will make th
 Do not replant any infested field with banana, plantain or any other host listed above. Wa
infested plants are destroyed before replanting any of these crops. Sweet potato, yam,
gungo peas can be safely planted instead.