The Prevalence of Leaf Blight Diseases of Tea (Camellia sinensis) in Habiganj and Moulvibazar District: Botryodiplodia theobromae an Important Obstacle

Among soft and non-alcoholic beverages, tea is the most popular beverage worldwide. Tea is the daily favourite drink of low-income Bangladeshi people. The tea industry market in Bangladesh is quite large and active. Habiganj and Moulvibazar districts of Sylhet division are a big source of the tea industry. But every year in this Habiganj-Moulvibazar tea region there is huge loss in the tea industry due to various diseases, especially fungal diseases. This affects the people who depend on this industry for their livelihood. Tea leaf blight disease is one of the major causes of loss in the tea industry in this tea region.The main objective of my research was to identify the fungal pathogen that causes blight of tea leaves and and to determine the prevalence rate of this disease, diseased tea leaves were collected from two tea gardens of Madhabpur upazila of Habiganj district several times and The data on the prevalence of tea leaf blight disease was taken from 50 units of 19 tea plantations in 2 districts of Habiganj and Moulvibazar districts. How much area of ​​tea leaf is affected, how many affected areas are there in the leaves, how much is affected in new tea leaves or old leaves, the colour of the affected area, whether the entire tea leaf is curled, all these data are collected from 50 units of 10 tea gardens.

First at the Moist chamber and then cultured or isolated in PDA (potato dextrose agar) media at specific temperature and systematically. Pathogen growth was monitored in them regularly. After a certain period of time, slides were prepared from special parts of the fungus and observed under an electron microscope, a fungal organism clearly identified this was Botryodiplodia theobromae. Data was collected to determine the prevalence rate of blight disease .By analysing the data which we collected from 10 tea gardens regarding the spread of tea leaf blight disease, we came to know the rate of spread of the disease.

Such research on tea leaf blight disease can play a helpful role in disease identification, rate determination and expansion of Tea industry in the Habiganj-Moulvibazar tea region.