Watermelon diseases and control measures

Abstract

Watermelon is susceptible to numerous plant pathogenic organisms, fungi, bacteria, viruses and other and its disease could be summarized as foliar diseases, root and vascular diseases and fruit diseases. In Serbia, the main concern is related to leaf blight (Alternaria cucumerina), gummy stem blight (Didymella bryoniae), anthracnose (Colletotrichum lagenarium) and fusarium wilt (Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. niveum). Correct and on time diagnosis is the essential prerequisite for successful control of particular pathogen occurrence and further spread. Occurrence, presence and distribution as well as economic significance of watermelon viruses have not been studied very much in Serbia. So far, the presence of three viruses Watermelon mosaic virus, WMV, Cucumber mosaic virus, CMV and Zucchini yellow mosaic, ZYMV, has been established. Successful control watermelon virus diseases includes regular and planed insecticide treatments in order to reduce aphid population, herbicide treatments in order to eliminate alternative virus hosts and planting less susceptible cultivars.

Kod nas se na lubenici javlja više biotskih bolesti koje izazivaju fitopatogene gljive, bakterije, virusi i nekoliko abiotskih činilaca. U odnosu na napadnuti biljni organ, mogu se podeliti na bolesti lista, bolesti korena i sprovodnih sudova i bolesti ploda. Pravovremena i pravilna dijagnostika oboljenja i identifikacija prouzrokovača osnovni je preduslov za izbor mera zaštite i sprečavanje pojave ili širenja bolesti. U našoj zemlji, od gljivičnih bolesti najveći problem predstavljaju pegavost lista (prouzrokovač Alternaria cucumerina), gumozno sušenje stabla (Didymella bryoniae), antraknoza (Colletotrichum lagenarium) i fuzariozno uvenuće (Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. niveum). Gljivične bolesti se kod nas, uglavnom, suzbijaju primenom fungicida (pegavost lista, antraknoza, gumoza stabla), agrotehničkim merama (plodored, kalemljenje) ili oplemenjivanjem na otpornost. Bakterijske bolesti lubenice su manje značajne u našoj zemlji. Protiv njih se ređe primenjuju direktne mere zaštite. Pojava, prisustvo i rasprostranjenost, kao i ekonomski značaj virusa lubenice u našoj zemlji malo su proučavani. Do sada su otkriveni virus mozaika lubenice (Watermelon mosaic virus, WMV), virus mozaika krastavca (Cucumber mosaic virus, CMV) i virus žutog mozaika cukinija (Zucchini yellow mosaic virus, ZYMV). Suzbijanje virusnih oboljenja lubenice zasniva se na pravovremenoj i redovnoj primeni insekticida radi suzbijanja vaši i primeni herbicida da bi se eliminisali alternativni domaćini, kao i korišćenju otpornih ili manje osetljivih genotipova.