Isolation, characterization and chemical management of bacterial leaf blight pathogen of rice

Bacterial leaf blight pathogen, Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo) being the one of the most destructive organism that constraints the rice cultivation in tropical parts of Asia. The pathogen causing leaf blight in rice was isolated from Coimbatore, Aduthurai, Gudalur, Theni, Krishnagiri, Vellur, Wayanad, Hyderabad and New Delhi were subjected to molecular characterization and the highly virulent isolate assessed through screening each isolates in bacterial leaf blight susceptible, ADT 38 variety. Coimbatore isolate (MH464904.1) has supervened over the other isolates by showing maximum lesion length. Also, the Coimbatore isolate showed genetic lineage to the other strains of Xoo characterized from China and parts of Indian subcontinent showing less divergence from the strains prevalent in those regions. Efficacy of chemicals viz., bionol, bactrinashak, niclosamide, chloramphenicol, ciprofloxacin, copper oxychloride, streptomycin sulphate were assessed against bacterial leaf blight pathogen where ciprofloxacin and niclosamide at all the concentration has showed better efficacy than the other chemicals.