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Tobacco plant problem

Tobacco    None Given

This is tobacco plant located at South India, State of Andhra Pradesh. district of West Godavari.
Last year during the cultivation of the tobacco we found the problem (shown in image 3) where beside the tobacco plant another unwanted plant is growing which is causing drastic damage, resulting in slow growth of tobacco plants and reduction in yield. Please provide the solution for this problem.

Thanks,
Sudhakar



Posted by: sudhakar (1 point) sudhakar
Posted: September 4, 2016




Answers

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The other plant is Broomrape (Orobanche cernua) which is a parasite that lives on the tobacco plant (called a holoparasitic weed). It occurs in in all tobacco growing areas in India and it known to have a very strong effect on the crop. In India, yield loss in tobacco ranges from 30 - 70%. It is very difficulty to control them due to their very tough seed bank, their very close contact with the host plant (so you cannot spray). So, the approaches for broomrape weeds are usually not controlled by management strategies designed for non-parasitic weeds. At present hand weeding is the only practice in India applied to control the parasite."

These plants are obligate plant-parasitic plants from the genera Orobanche and Phelipanche in the Orobanchaceae family

The best approach is to use resistant tobacco plants . What plants have you been using. At the moment the best advice is to hand weed as much as possible to prevent the flowers you see in the picture from setting seeds.

There is a recent thorough review on this topic
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artic...

We will put some details on broomrape into our library and find the best recommendations.


Please let us know how you get on.





Posted by: David Hughes (66 points) David Hughes
Posted: September 5, 2016




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Agree with David, broomrape is a complete root parasitic weed which attach to tobacco roots and extracts nutrient and water leading to poor growth of tobacco plants. Generally high soil moisture and low soil temperature favors the broomrape outbreak.

Since hand weeding is only viable option- Central Tobacco Research Institute, Rajahmundry, India have developed a special spear which helps in complete killing of weeds.

http://www.ctri.org.in/for_controlDis...

Usually deep summer ploughing may helps in exposing weed seeds to sunlight and reducing weed population. Also make sure to remove the emerged weeds before flowering and burn them. Rotate the crop with sorghum, black gram etc., to reduce weed population (but avoid growing tomato, eggplant and okra in the same field since broomrape also attack this crops).


Posted by: Dr. Ravishankar Narayana (15 points) Dr. Ravishankar Narayana
Posted: September 9, 2016




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