Status of coconut diseases in Andhra Pradesh, India

In India, coconut is predominantly grown in the States of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh in considerable extent with due importance in daily life. Erstwhile East Godavari, West Godavari, Srikakulam Vijayanagaram and Visakhapatnam districts are important coconut growing coastal districts in Andhra Pradesh with significant production and productivity. Major factors that contribute to the loss of production and productivity in coconut are damage due to the insect pests and diseases. The most destructive diseases of coconut in Andhra Pradesh that leads to death of palms are basal stem rot and bud rot. The other important diseases are stem bleeding and leaf blight causing severe yield losses. The last two decades data enlightened that the basal stem rot disease was of serious concern with 25.65 per cent incidence in the year 2001 and slowly waned to 1.25 percent by the year 2023. The hotspot areas recorded highest incidence of 22.60 per cent in Srikakulam district followed by east Godavari district in the (17.85%), West Godavari (10.03%),Vishakapatnam(6.94%) and lowest in Vijayanagaram district (5.42%) during the year 2016 and then deflated in subsequent years by 2021. The next fatal disease in scarce is bud rot disease inflated by 25.63 per cent and deflated to 0.0 percent in subsequent years. District wise survey data in recent years reflected its infection in West Godavari (1.31-0.43%), East Godavari district (1.13%-0.43%), Vijayanagaram (1-0.68%), Srikakulam district (0.85%-0.43%), and lowest in Vishakapatnam(0.7-0.50%), for the year 2016 and downswing by the year 2021. The stem bleeding disease, is not prevalent in all the villages but found to occur in sporadic manner with 10.21 per cent incidence as highest and is dwindled in subsequent decades by 0.43 percent. In the concentric hives of Vijayanagaram district it is noted highest incidence of 5.0 per cent followed by Srikakulam district (4.05%), Vishakapatnam (3.76%), West Godavari (3.34%), and lowest in East Godavari district (1.86%) for the year 2016 and then abated subsequently. In recent years, leaf blight is an emerging serious problem noticed in Eluru district which was initially 0.1 DI during 2020 and swiftly surged to 5.23 DI to7.78 DI, respectively in consecutive years 2022 and 2023.