Author(s): Abiyot Lemma, Hadush Hagos, Yohannes Zekarias and Amrote Tekle
Sugarcane smut disease caused by the fungus Sporisorium scitamineum significantly reduces the yield and quality of sugarcane. Study on the reaction of thirty one newly imported genotypes from CIRAD was conducted to evaluate their reaction to sugarcane smut at Metahara sugarcane plantation. The findings of this study were based on collection of sugarcane smut spores, testing the viability of the spore and inoculating the tested material by immersing in the spore suspension (5 x 106 spores ml-1) for 30 minutes. During the course of the experiment, data on smut stool count begins six weeks after planting and continues at 10-day intervals till ten months after planting. Evaluation of genotypes for resistance to smut was made based on percentage of infected stools by using a 0-9 disease rating scale. Among the tested materials, no genotypes were shown an immune reaction to the Ethiopian sugarcane smut isolates. While about 81.3% of genotypes have shown from moderately resistant to very highly resistant reaction in which 21.9%, 9.4%, 21.9% and 28.1% were Very Highly Resistant (VHR), Highly Resistant (HR), Resistant (R) and Moderately Resistant (MR) reactions to sugarcane smut respectively. 18.7% of genotypes were shown Intermediate (I) (3.1%), Susceptible (S) (6.25%) and Very highly susceptible (VHS) (9.4%) reactions, so that these genotypes PSR 97 051 (I), FG 02 551 (S), FG 03 396 (S) FG 06 729 (VHS), FG 03 173 (VHS), and FG 03 526 (VHS), won’t be considered as promising genotypes which can competently resist to sugarcane smut in the country.
