62 SCIENTIFIC REPORTS OF THE AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH 



every case the same organism was produced in culture and 

 inoculations with these cultures have been successful in 

 producing the disease upon canes at Pusa. The hyphae 

 appear to enter the leaf through the stomata and penetrate 

 the tissues of the leaf in all directions; microscopic work 

 on this subject is proceeding. The disease appears to be 

 very similar to that known in Java under the name of 

 " Het zuur Rot." 



Specimens of a different sclerotial disease of sugarcane 

 were received from Eastern Bengal during the year and 

 appeared to be identical with the disease which is known 

 in Java as " Djamoer Oepas." In this case very characteris- 

 tic light brown spots with a dark margin occurred on the 

 blade of the leaf together with a fungus having a brownish 

 mycelium and irregular brown sclerotia. Both the para- 

 sitic organism and the resulting spots on the leaf were very 

 similar to the sclerotial fungus and the leaf spots described 

 below upon paddy. 



The fungus Sclerotiuin Oryzce Catt. was very prevalent 

 upon specimens of diseased paddy from the Central Pro- 

 vinces, and associated with S. Oryzce on these specimens a 

 second sclerotial fungus was found. This latter form 

 possessed small brown spherical sclerotia, very regular in 

 shape and size. The fungus was obtained in culture and 

 its parasitism upon paddy is being investigated. 



Paddy in Pusa sometimes suffers from the attack of 

 another species of sclerotial fungus with large, brown, irre- 

 gular sclerotia and hyphae of the Rhizoctonia type. This 

 fungus causes very distinctive spots upon the leaf sheath ; 

 these spots when mature have a light brownish central area 

 surrounded by a dark red brown line, the central portion 

 consists of dried and dead leaf tissue and the darker margin 

 probably represents the active^ zone of the fungus. The 

 external symptoms resemble very strongly those of the scle- 

 rotial disease of sugarcane from Dacca, and it is possible 

 that the causal organism in the two cases is the same, but 

 the present fungus on paddy has several points of agree- 

 ment with the species Sclerotium irregulare, described by 



