Effect of nitrogen fertilization on the expression of slow-blasting resistance in rice

Abstract

The development of rice blast disease in four slow-blasting (SB) genotypes was compared with that in the fast-blasting (FB) genotype Karuna, under natural field epidemics over a period of 3 years at five levels of nitrogen, in order to determine if the application of high doses of nitrogen influenced the expression of disease progress in the SB types. The treatment effects were compared through estimation of nine parameters viz. (i) lesion number (LN); (ii) area under disease progress curve (AUDPC); (iii) relative area under disease progress curve (RAUDPC); (iv) logistic apparent infection rate (r); (v) Gompertz apparent infection rate (k); (vi) logit line intercept (logit-a); (vii) gompit line intercept (gompit-a); (viii) time required for the disease to reach 0·25 severity in logistic (T_25r); and (ix) Gompertz (T_25k) models. There was a significant increase in LN, AUDPC, RAUDPC, r and k with increased levels of nitrogen application in all genotypes, but the rate of increase in disease severity was much lower in SB genotypes than the FB one and did not lead to breakdown of resistance in the SB genotypes, since severity level was much below the economic injury level. Among the nine derived parameters for evaluation of resistance LN, AUDPC, RAUDPC, r and k were best. The AUDPC and RAUDPC had lower degrees of error variance compared with the other parameters and hence were considered superior measures for characterization of disease progress curves.