ABSTRACT
Wheat and barley are the major Rabi cereal crops of India and contribute greatly to the food security of the country. Rice-Wheat cropping system is very popular in entire Indo-Gangetic plains due to assured support prices and foolproof crop production technologies of rice and wheat. The occurrence of wheat blast in Bangladesh in 2016 created threats to wheat cultivation in adjoining states like West Bengal, Assam, and other north-eastern states. Wheat crop in certain parts of Punjab, Haryana, J&K, parts of Uttarakhand and bordering crop fields in Uttar Pradesh have been affected by stripe rust or yellow rust of wheat caused by a fungal pathogen, Puccinia striiformis. Powdery mildew is mainly present in the cooler areas and hilly region; foothills, and plains of North-Western India and the southern hills. The diseases are managed in an integrated manner using mainly host resistance in wheat and barley. Not all diseases are prevalent and causing losses uniformly in all agroeco-logical zones.
