Disease scenario of tomato in mid-hills and sub-tropical plains of India

Tomato is an important off season vegetable crops, grown during March to September in mid-hills of Himachal Pradesh, which fetches higher price in the plains. In sub-tropical plains, it is grown mostly from July to November and November to May depending on the location and climatic conditions. Due to inflow of new hybrids/varieties and possibly global warming, disease scenario is changing at a faster rate particularly during the last 2-3 decades across the country. This calls for continuous monitoring of crop plants for the occurrence and prevalence of biotic stresses particularly diseases which are responsible for heavy crop loss. Erratic and un-predictive weather conditions favouring particular diseases often led to huge crop loss. Unexpected rains and unusual morning fog during October 2005 has caused severe outbreak of bacterial spot in 6000 acres in AP (Singh, 2005). Keeping in view the sensitivity of tomato crop to various biotic stresses in mid hills and subtropical plains, a roving survey was undertaken in Solan (mid hills) and Chhattisgarh during 2011 and 2012 and Uttar Pradesh (subtropical plain) during 2011.