~ 2027 ~ International Journal of Chemical Studies 2019; 7(6): 2027-2030 P-ISSN: 2349–8528 E-ISSN: 2321–4902 IJCS 2019; 7(6): 2027-2030 © 2019 IJCS Received: 13-09-2019 Accepted: 15-10-2019 DS Sunil Kumar Department of Plant Pathology, College of Agriculture, Dharwad, Karnataka, India MSL Rao Department of Plant Pathology, College of Agriculture, Dharwad, Karnataka, India Shamarao Jahagirdar Department of Plant Pathology, College of Agriculture, Dharwad, Karnataka, India GT Basavaraj AICRP on Soybean, College of Agriculture, Dharwad, Karnataka, India Corresponding Author: DS Sunil Kumar Department of Plant Pathology, College of Agriculture, Dharwad, Karnataka, India Evaluation of germplasm lines against pod blight complex disease of soybean Glycine max (L.) Merrill under epiphytotic conditions DS Sunil Kumar, MSL Rao, Shamarao Jahagirdar and GT Basavaraj Abstract Soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merill) is one of the most important oilseed - cum leguminous crop gaining importance during recent years due to its short duration, drought resistance, high yielding ability and nutritive value. It is the world’s foremost provider of protein and oil. In Karnataka, the area production and productivity of soybean were 0.27 m ha, 0.17 mt and 639 kg/ha, respectively (Anonymous, 2018). Soybean growing major states in the country are Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, etc. Among the fungal diseases infecting soybean crop, pod blight caused by Colletotrichum truncatum (Schew.) Andus and Moore, Colletotrichum gloeosporoides (Penz.) Penz. and Sac. and Rhizoctonia bataticola (Taub.) Butler is one of the most important and destructive disease. The experiment on screening of available genotypes has taken under natural epiphytotic condition at Ugarkhurdh, Belagavi during kharif of 2016 and 2017. Out of 235 entries None of them were immune or absolutely resistant, 6 genotypes viz., JS 97-52, AMS MBS-18, NRC 127, SL 1104, DSb 28-3 and DSb 30-2 showed resistant reaction to pod blight, most of the entries like PS 1347, RSC 10-46, SL 1074, DSb 32 and NRC 86 were moderately resistant and MACS 1520, PS 1569, RUS 2002-4 and RUS 2008-24 are moderately susceptible in reaction. Genotypes like Pusa 97-12, Shivalik, JS 335 and KDS 1045 were showed susceptible reaction and genotypes like KDS 869, KDS 921, KDS 980 and JS 93-05 are highly susceptible to disease. Keywords: Soybean, genotypes, Colletotrichum, Rhizoctonia, resistant Introduction Soybean Glycine max (L.) Merill is a native of eastern Asia popularly known as Chinese pea or Manchurian bean. Further it is also referred to as Golden bean or Miracle bean and wonder crop of the 20th century because of its characters and usage (Sinclair and Backman, 1989) [8] . It has great potential as an exceptionally nutritive and very rich protein food. It can supply the much needed protein to human diets, because it contains more than forty per cent protein of superior quality and all the essential amino acids particularly glycine, tryptophan and lysine, similar to cow‘s milk and animal proteins. As soybean, acreage has increased throughout the world, so the pathogens attacking the crop have increased in number and severity (Gupta and Paul, 2002) [3] . Since soybean is highly protein rich (40%) and having good oil percentage (20%) these pathogens becoming major constraint in soybean production both in terms of yield, protein and oil percentage (Rathore, 2005) [6] . The climatic conditions and seasonal differences in tropics vary mainly due to rainfall patterns which affect the distribution and importance of diseases. Yield losses for some diseases range from relatively minor to potentially devastating (Sinclair, 1993) [10] . The world loss of more than seven million tons of soybean is reported due to diseases alone (Sinclair, 1974) [9] . In India, losses due to various diseases are estimated as 12% of total production. It is cultivated over an area of 0.27 million hectare with a production of 0.17 million tonnes and productivity of about 639 kg/ha in Karnataka (Anonymous, 2018) [1] . The state productivity (639 kg/ha) and national productivity (803 kg/ha) are low in comparison with world average (2735 kg/ha). The major soybean growing states in the country are Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, etc. the host plant resistance is paramount because of its eco-friendly nature and cost effectiveness and one of the easiest and cheapest methods to manage the disease is to select the resistant genotypes against pod blight disease complex.