Influence of sowing dates on the incidence of powdery mildew of chilli

A field experiment was conducted during kharif, 2005 at Agricultural Research station, Devihosur, Haveri, Karnataka to assess the progress of powdery mildew at different time interval of sowing dates. Totally 20 different dates of sowings were imposed in the experiment at an interval of 10 days. The crop sown on last week of May to mid of June recorded minimum disease severity compared to rest of the date of sowings. This clearly indicated that crop sown during this period suffers less, which may be due to low inoculum potential, whereas late sown crop suffers more because of the readily available inoculum in the early sown crops. Low disease severity in last week of May to mid of June sowing may be attributed to the non-congenial weather factors for the development of the disease.