False smut

Causative agent

Fungus, Ustilaginoidea virens

Plant parts and life stages affected

Mature panicle and grains

Symptoms

This disease is considered as an omen of a good harvest, as the factors that favour this disease will also favour a good yield.

Disease symptoms start to show when the grains get mature. When the grains are full, the pericarp splits a little bit, which facilitates the causative agent to enter and develop.

Seed coat remains green while inside the grain, the disease develops forming a large orange to brown-green fruiting structures

This could be observed in one or more grains of the mature panicle.

Later the orange covering ruptures exposing a mass of greenish-black spores

The grain is then replaced by one or more sclerotia.