Author(s):

V Sendhilvel and P Veeramani

Abstract: The study was undertaken to ascertain the role of temperature and heat wave for causing of soft rot (or) head rot disease or tip over disease in Banana caused by <em>Erwinia ca rotovora </em>sub sp. <em>carotovora</em>. Banana crop is cultivated in Vellore District of Tamil Nadu nearly 3200 ha. The major problem in banana cultivation is tip-over disease during the month of March to May for past few years. The disease incidence is ranged from 34.6 to 67.9 per cent. The occurrence of disease was higher in tissue culture banana plant <em>viz., </em>Grand Naine (G 9), followed by Karpooravalli and Poovan varieties. The highest temperatures ranged from 39.6 to 42°C were recorded during the month of April 2012, 2013 and 2014 and the maximum disease incidence was recorded was 67.9 per cent. The banana pseudostem contains about 90 per cent of water (stem juice). The stem juice is boiled during the month of April due to increasing higher temperature of 42°C. These temperatures caused the scorching of cigar leaf (recently emerging leaf still rolled as a cylinder) and predispose the tender tissue for rotting by saprophytic life phase of <em>E. carotovora sub sp. carotovora</em>. The leaf was tightly coiled and fragile in nature. The abiotic stress was supervise by sowing of <em>Sesbania grandiflora</em> as border crop and <em>Sesbania aculeate</em> as intercrop in banana field revealed that the tip-over disease incidence was reduced to 6.73 from 67.9 per cent recorded in the control plot.

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