Detection, Disease Severity and Chlorophyll Prediction of Date Palm Leaf Spot Fungal Diseases

What is it about?

Date palm leaves are infected with the fungal pathogens genus viz., Alternaria, Curvularia, Aspergillius and Neoscytalidium causing leaf spot diseases. The evaluation of chlorophyll content in the infected seedlings possibly could provide a good indicator for a degree of disease or infection, and changes during pathogenesis. Date palm seedlings at three-month-old were infected with 6 pathogenic fungal inoculums were tested. Disease severity% (DS%) and chlorophyll (Chl) contents using a single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) meter were recorded at 15. 30 and 45 days after inoculation. Pearson's correlation analysis, Durbin Watson and regression analysis were performed to evaluate the relationship between the variables. It was found that the relationship between DS% with fungi, chlorophyll and days were in multiple regression models (R2 =91.88 and 91.87%, respectively). While, the relationship between chlorophyll with fungi, DS% and days were in multiple regression models (R2 =92.22 and 92.20%, respectively). The SPAD chlorophyll value could be considered as a better alternative over the DS% as the SPAD chlorophyll value was strongly related to DS%, as well as able to detect physiological changes in the infected date palm at the early stages of leaf spot pathogenesis.

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Photo by Felicia Montenegro on Unsplash

Photo by Felicia Montenegro on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The aim of this study was to examine the possibility of the relationship between disease severity % with fungi, chlorophyll and days for the detection and quantification of date palm leaf spot diseases.

Perspectives