My groundnut leaves have brown spots that spread and cause leaf drop in Junagadh. How do I manage tikka leaf spot?
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The brown spots that enlarge and cause defoliation are tikka leaf spot, with early leaf spot showing pale haloed brown spots and late leaf spot showing darker spots, and heavy defoliation cuts both pod yield and pod fill. Manage it by using clean seed and a tolerant variety, avoiding continuous groundnut on the same land, and removing crop residue that carries the fungus. Start protective fungicide sprays when spots first appear and repeat as per the label interval during the spreading stage rather than waiting for severe defoliation. Rotating with a non host crop reduces carryover. Rust often comes along with late leaf spot, so the same sprays usually target both. Get the recommended fungicide schedule, dose, and PHI from your local KVK or the groundnut research centre at Junagadh.
Starting the spray when the first few spots showed, not after the leaves were already falling, made a big difference for me. Once defoliation begins it is hard to recover the pods.
Growing groundnut on the same plot year after year was making my tikka worse because the fungus carried over in the leftover residue. After I rotated with a different crop for a season and cleared the old crop trash, the disease pressure was noticeably lower. Crop rotation is an easy long term help.
In Saurashtra the rust usually rides along with the late leaf spot, the orange brown pustules under the leaf. The good thing is the protective sprays for tikka mostly handle both together. Start with clean seed and a tolerant variety, and get the exact fungicide schedule and PHI from the Junagadh research centre.