Diseases and pests of potato in NEH Region of India

Potato is an important crop of the NEH region of India. NEH region of the country comprises the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura. NEH region covers 124.27 (‘000Ha) area under potato and production is 897.46 (‘000MT). Productivity of potato in the region is 7.22 t/ha against the country average productivity of 22.8 t/ha. Less productivity is due to the several abiotic, mesobiotic and biotic factors such as lack of quality seeds of suitable varieties, growing of crops under rainfed situation, non adoption of recommended package of practices by growers, lack of infrastructural facilities like cold storage and occurrence of diseases and pests. Hence, an investigation was made during Rabi season 2009- 10 and 2010-11 to observe the incidence of diseases and infestation of pests on potato varieties. It was observed during the study period that the potato variety K. Ashoka was most vulnerable towards the infestation of various diseases and pests and it was closely followed with K. Jyoti and K. Pushkar. At the time of harvest K. Pushkar proved most superior and it was having minimum incidence of potato scab followed by K. Ashoka and K. Jyoti. Further, infestation of other pests and diseases has also found to minimum in K. Pushkar as compared to other varieties.