ABSTRACT
This chapter provides information on diseases of mesta, their symptoms, pathogen characters, epidemiology, and management. The diseases covered are foot and stem rot, stem rot, and yellow vein mosaic. The sclerotia survive in the soil and with falling of temperature in the month of December-January, it germinates and developed apothecia in which asci and ascospores are formed. Upon discharge the ascospore cause infection. The disease starts as discoloured water soaked area mostly from the margin of leaf which increased towards inward direction and infect the petiole, through which it moves towards the stem. The characteristic symptom of the disease is yellowing of veins and veinlets followed by complete chlorosis of leaves. The flowers and fruits are malformed causing low seed yield.
