The vein clearing (kokke kandu) disease suspected to be caused by an unknown virus is an important production constraint of cardamom in India.In the present study the causal virus was transmitted from infected to healthy... more
Cardamom thrips (Sciothrips cardamomi) is a major insect pest of cardamom(Elettaria cardamomum) causing severe economic losses to the crop in all cardamom producing countries. The present control measures rely heavily on... more
The incidence of auger beetle, Sinoxylon anale Lesne (Bostrichidae: Coleoptera), a destructive pest of cosmopolitan occurrence is reported for the first time on allspice trees from Kozhikode, Kerala. The insects bored through the basal region... more
Sclerotium rolfsii is a soil borne pathogen, which commonly occurs in black pepper nurseries causing root rot. Biocontrol agents viz., Trichoderma harzianum and Streptomycetes spp. were tested against the pathogen under in planta challenge... more
Survey of transcriptomes by direct sequencing of fulllength transcripts in the range of 1 to 3 kb was done in black pepper and small cardamom using SMRT Sequencing with PacBio RS II System. Using the PacBio protocol, we obtained 53689 reads of... more