OKRA or ladyfinger is an important vegetable crop. It is presently in fields suffering from the root-rot disease. The disease incidence ranges between 10-80 per cent with a maximum of 55-80 per cent in the crop grown on small scale as kitchen crop and minimum of 10-45 per cent sown on large scale.

The growers are worried about the problem. Researchers have found less expensive and easy to adopt ways for disease control with or without the use of poisonous chemicals. Most growers are unaware of these measures.

Ladyfinger or Abelmoschus esculentus is cultivated as a vegetable. Though cultivated worldwide but is considered a native either of tropical Africa or Asia. Okra is a popular summer crop and young tender fruits are cooked in curries stewed and in soups. It is a good source of vitamins A, B and C and is also rich in proteins, minerals and iodine. The stem of the okra plant provides fibre used in the paper industry.

In Pakistan, okra covers an area of about 224.1 thousand hectares with an annual production of 2873.2 thousand tons. In Sindh, 35 thousand hectares remain under cultivation with an annual production of 202.1 thousand tons. Early and late sown okra sales stand above Rs50 per kg, but normal retail rate is between 10 and 20 per kg.

Though growth and yield are satisfactory in Pakistan but the average yield as compared to other countries like the US and Cyprus is still low. There are several reasons for this such as soil, time and method of sowing, seed quality, irrigation and fertilizer applications, inter-culturing etc. Insect pests and diseases are also significant.

Okra plants are attacked by a number of diseases caused by different fungi for example root (collar) rot and damping-off, root/stem rot; angular leaf spot and powdery mildew. According to reports root rot is one of the most destructive diseases. Its incidence ranges between 10-80 per cent with a maximum of 55-80 per cent in the crop grown in kitchen gardens and minimum of 10-45 per cent in the crop sown on large scale under field conditions.

The affected plants show dark brown to black discoloration from the base of stems. The infected plants are scattered or are in groups. The severely infected plants die and their roots turn dark brown which are badly damaged. The root rot may be found on individual plants or on a group which spreads rapidly under optimum conditions. The fungus is reported to reproduce the disease due to sclerotia in the soil or attached with infected plants. The infected seeds of okra appear brown to black and show die-back and root rot. Many researchers have worked on the screening of disease resistant varieties but none of the varieties are found completely resistant.

The management practices play an important role in controlling the disease. Sowing time, row and plant spacing, seed rate, water and other nutritional requirements, environmental conditions and mulching methods etc., are important components for controlling the diseases and to boost the yields.

Researchers have found cheap and easy ways to control the diseases but most growers are unaware of these. Chemical seed, soil treatment, leaf extracts and oil cakes do not produce significant results with success stories. According to reports mulching with transparent polyethylene combined with garlic or onion aqueous extracts for 30 days significantly reduces the disease and its severity. Garlic extract is more effective than the onion’s in controlling the diseases. Adding each of garlic and onion aqueous extracts to soil infested with the causal pathogens decrease the disease.

An experiment was conducted on the effects of mulching methods on root rot in Tandojam. The results revealed that straw mulching method is more effective on soil moisture resulting in plant growth and development with less disease incidence, followed by plastic mulching as compared to weed control. The parameters like plant height and number of pickings increase the yields. Straw mulching has more yields and lesser root rot incidence over plastic mulching and weed management practices.

The growers, therefore, are advised to include straw mulch instead of fungicide application against the root rot of okra, so that the low cost and pollution free crop production technology can produce the disease and poison free vegetable. It is suggested that the researchers must conduct experiments on other aspects of non-chemical and bio-control methods against the diseases to reduce health risks and environmental pollution because of the poison present in agro-products.