Flag Smut Control: Best Management Practices For Wheat Farmers

Are you battling with wheat flag smut disease and searching for effective solutions to protect your crop and maximize your yield? Look no further! We have the solutions you’ve been looking for to directly tackle this destructive disease. Continue reading this article to gain a deeper understanding of wheat flag smut and find valuable insights to effectively combat its impact. 

Wheat flag smut, caused by fungal pathogen Urocystis tritici, poses a significant threat to global wheat production. Flag smut differs from other cereal smut diseases by exhibiting symptoms on the leaves rather than the heads. The yields of the affected plants can be reduced but incidence of this disease is low. This disease specifically targets wheat as its sole host, while other strains of the fungus affect various grass species. 

Type of Infestation

Flag Smut disease is both seed borne, and soil borne.  

• Primary infection occurs by sowing infected seeds.
• Secondary infection occurs through the resting spores present in the soil.

Scientific Name: Urocystis tritici 

Most Affected States

Some of the most affected states of wheat flag smut includes Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, up, Bihar, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh. 

Symptoms of Wheat Flag Smut

Common symptoms caused by flag smut includes, 

• Flag smut generally affects the wheat plants from late seedling stage to maturity stage.
• The leaves and leaf sheath are most commonly affected by the flag smut disease, but stem culm also gets affected occasionally.
• Grey to greyish black sori can be observed in the affected part of leaf blade and leaf sheath.
• Primarily the sori develops under the epidermis, later when the epidermis ruptures the black powdery mass exposes out from the leaves.
• In case of seedling infection, leaves exhibit a twisting and drooping appearance, eventually leading to withering.
• If the infection occurs during late stage, heads may fail to emerge or produce poor grain.

Control Measures

If you find any of the above listed symptoms in wheat field, follow the integrated management measures which includes cultural, mechanical and chemical measures to effectively control flag smut disease. 

Cultural Measures

• Grow resistant wheat varieties like Pusa 44 and WG 377.
• Use only clean seeds for planting.
• Follow crop rotations with non-host crops like soybeans, sorghum and corn, to decrease the fungal population and reduce the risk of infection in future years.
• Avoid early planting, that too in warm moist soils, which are known to favor infection by the flag smut fungus.

Mechanical Measures

• Collect and burn the infected plants to reduce the spread of flag smut disease.

Biological Measures

• Ecoderma is a bio control agent containing Trichoderma viride, which protects crops from various seed and soil borne plant pathogens. To control flag smut disease, treat the wheat seeds with Trichoderma at the rate of 6 gm per kg of seeds.

Chemical Measures

• Vitavax Power is a broad-spectrum dual action fungicide which controls seed and soil borne diseases and also acts as a plant growth stimulant. Its technical content Carboxin 37.5% + Thiram 37.5% DS. The recommended dosage for seed treatment is 3 gm per kg of seed.
• Treat the wheat seed with Carbendazim at the rate of 2 gm/kg of seeds to effectively control flag smut of wheat.