Pruning and plant debris management can alleviate shoot dieback disease in cashew orchard

Field experiments were conducted at Regional Research Station (R & L Zone), Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, West Bengal, India during 2018–2019 and 2019–2020 to evaluate the efficacy of pruning and plant debris management against cashew dieback disease and nut yield. Adoption of pruning along with plant debris management in orchard significantly reduced the dieback severity and resulted highest nut yield as compared to plot treated with selective pruning, debris management as well as control. There was a consistent reduction of disease severity as well as area under disease progress curve (AUDPC) in both years in treatments. The pooled analysis of data revealed that T₁ (pruning + debris management) showed lowest disease severity (32.92%) and AUDPC (6743.75) followed by T₂ (pruning only). Pooled data of annual nut yield, number of panicles m^− 2 and number of nuts m^− 2 were also significant. However, numbers of nuts panicle^− 1 and nut weight were non-significant. AUDPC was also significantly negatively correlated with annual nut yield (r= -0.953, p < 0.05), number of panicles m^− 2 (r= -0.974, p < 0.05) and number of nuts m^− 2 (r= -0.990, p < 0.05). However, annual nut yield was also positively correlated with number of panicles m^− 2 (r = 0.996, p < 0.01) and number of nuts m^− 2 (r = 0.986, p < 0.05).