This document describes dieback disease of chilli caused by the fungus Colletotrichum capsici. It lists the causal organism and its taxonomy. The main symptoms are necrosis of twigs from the tip backwards, drying of flowers and fruits, and dieback of branches. The fungus spreads via airborne conidia or rain splash. Management involves collecting and burning crop debris, seed treatment with fungicides, and spraying fungicides after fruits begin to ripe.

1. Dieback
of
Chilli

2.  Causal Organism:- Colletotrichum capsici
 Kingdom:- Fungi
 Division:- Ascomycota
 Class:- Sordariomycetes
 Order:- Glomerallales
 Family:- Glomerallaceae

3. SYMPTOMS
 As the fungus causes necrosis of tender twigs from the tip backwards the
disease is called die- back.
 Infection usually begins when the crop is inflower and they drop and dry
up.
 This drying up spreads from the flower stalks tothe stem and subsequently
causes die-back of the branches and stem and the branches wither.
 It partially affected the plants that bear fruits which are few and of low
quality.
 On the surface of the soil the necrotic areas are found separated from the
healthy area by a dark brown to black band.

4. Drying of fruit

6. ETIOLOGY
o Mycelium is septate, hyaline, inter and intracellular
o Hyphae develop the fruiting body called acervuli
o Acervuli (Asexual stage) are rounded and elongated
o Setae have black spike structure, 1-5 septate, hardly swollen at base.
o Conidiophore are aseptate , unbranched and unicellular
o Conidia borne singly on tip of conidiophore, hyaline, unicellular
and sickle shape
o Sexual stage- Glomeralla (Perithecia)
o Appresoria is brown and clavate to circular

7. EPIDEMIOLOGY
 Temperature:- 28̊C.
 High relative humidity-92% orabove
 The fungus is seed borne and the secondary infection is by
air borne conidia and also by rain.
 Heavy and prolong dew deposition afterrainy season.

8. DISEASE CYCLE
 Dispersal of Colletotrichum capsici spores is heavily reliant on water splashes onto host plants or wind-
driven rain since water is requiredfor spore germination and penetration into host.
 C. capsici has a necrotrophic lifestyle; therefore, after penetration ofthe host surface, it secretes many
cell wall degrading enzymes into the environment between the host cells.
 C. capsici overwinters as conidia or sclerotia, and spend the majorityof their life in their conidial stage.
 C. capsici, the asexual stage, consists of hooked shaped conidiaproduced from acervuli, a sub-epidermal
fruiting body.
 When grown on plates its colony morphology was observed to have white to grey, a dark green center, and
dense, filamentous mycelium.

9. MANAGEMENT
A. Cultural control
Seeds should be collected from spotless fruits.
Disease crop debris should be collected and burnt.
B. Chemical control
 Seed treatment with Vitavax 200, Brassical @ 2g/ kg of seed.
 Spraying with Dithane M 45 or Bavistin @ 0.2% solution, 3-4 times after 15 days
interval when fruit begin to ripe.