Chemical Management Strategies for Popcorn Disease and Mulberry Sucker on Fruit-Producing Mulberry

From our field investigation from 2017 to 2018, five diseases and four insect pests have been identified as the primary biotic stressors of fruit-producing mulberry, which include popcorn disease and mulberry sucker, respectively. In this study, we examined the relative control effects of selected agro-chemicals against the popcorn disease and mulberry sucker. Our systemic treatment methods to simultaneously control the popcorn disease and the mulberry sucker indicated that an integrated control method showed a superior result with the control efficacy of 89.3%, while a conventional control method resulted in 66.7%. As a result, we concluded that it is much efficient to control both disease and insect pest in mid-April while sequentially applying chemicals only for the popcorn disease from February. By considering the ecological aspects of the popcorn disease and mulberry sucker, this systemic treatment will be able to reduce the labor of growers required for the control.