Barnyard Millet / Japanese Millet or Sawan (Echinochloa frumentacea L.) Diseases and Their Management Strategies

Barnyard also known as Japanese millet is one of the cultivated relative of barnyard grass. It is a short duration and fastest growing among all the millets and matures in about six weeks. Head smut disease of barnyard millet is caused by Ustilago crusgalli . Echinocloa colonum is also infected by the pathogen in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Head smut has been reported from the United States and India. The infected earheads are completely deformed and destroyed. Leaf spot or blight was first reported from the USA by Drechsler in 1923. The disease is known to occur in China, Japan, and India. The symptoms of the disease appear as isolated, dark brown, spindle shaped spots, fairly scattered on flag leaves. Sheath blight disease of barnyard millet was reported for the first time by B. Kumar and D. Prasad from Uttarakhand, India. The disease manifests itself as light grey to dark brown, oval to irregular lesions on leaf sheath.