Leaf blast disease has been reported for the first time in Chandannath-3, a popular rice variety released for the high Himalayan region of Nepal. The disease was observed in the Farmers’ Field Trial (FFT) – High Hill Set conducted at Hill Crops Research Program (HCRP), Kabre, Dolakha composed by National Plant Breeding and Genetics Research Centre (NPBGRC), Khumaltar, Lalitpur where Chandannath-3 was used as a Check variety. Chandannath-3 along with NR11341-B-B-32-2, showed highly susceptible reaction to leaf blast disease where 90% of the leaves are died. After notification of disease incidence from HCRP, a team of plant breeders from NPBGRC and plant pathologists from National Plant Pathology Research Center (NPPRC) including Dr. Hira Kaji Manandhar (Senior Plant Pathologist and expert for the rice blast disease), Mr. Krishna Hari Ghimire (Senior Plant Breeder and Chief of NBPGRC), Jiban Shrestha, Mahesh Subedi, Sudeep Subedi, Dr. Ujjawal Kumar Singh Kushwaha, Shrinkhala Manandhar, Pratikshya Sharma, and Dr. Bandhu Raj Baral visited rice, maize, finger millet and soybean experiments conducted at HCRP, Kabre, Dolakha last week. Mr. Ghimire suggested not to include these varieties in further research trials. According to him, the breeder seed production of disease-affected varieties will be stopped from next year. The visit revealed that the disease observed in Chandannath-3 and other genotypes was leaf blast caused by a fungus Magnaporthe oryzae. The Chandannath-3 is a cold tolerant rice variety released by the Nepal Government in 2058 BS on recommendation of Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) for Jumla or similar environments with the altitude range of 1600-3000 meter asl, having an average productivity of 5.3 metric tons per hectare and the maturity of 192 days in Jumla condition.
