ABSTRACT

With high nutritive quality, papaya is globally an important tropical fruit that originated from Mexico and South America and later on cultivated gradually in all parts of the world. This plant holds a significant part in agricultural export. However, this plant is prone to biosecurity threat due to exposure with plenty of diseases leading to reduction in yield as well as marketable quality. This chapter covers some of the very important diseases which include fungal, bacterial, viral, and phytoplasma. This chapter elaborately discusses about some economically important disease with proper etiology, epidemiology, and symptoms which would help to identify the diseases with much ease. The fungal diseases included in this chapter are, namely, black spot, anthracnose, damping-off of seedlings, phytopthora blight, and powdery mildew. Bacterial diseases include bacterial leaf spot, internal yellowing, and purple stain rot. Viral diseases include papaya ring spot virus, papaya lethal yellowing virus, Meleira disease, and phytoplasma diseases include dieback and bunchy top. However, the most 68vital part of this chapter is the management practices that maintain the production and productivity of papaya. In order to get effective control along with the maintenance of sustainability and ecological balance of environment, integrated diseases management is the most effective management principle. Integrated diseases management process includes physical, cultural, biological, and finally chemical methods.