Pre-emergence Seed and Seedling Symptoms Infected seed and seedlings are reduced to a dark brown or black spongy mass of rotted tissue It is seed borne fungi. So, decay is most rapid when infected seeds are sown.

Pre-emergence Seed and Seedling Rots
Management Sow good quality and disease-free seed. Avoid damage to the seed testa. Deep placement of seed at sowing. Treat the seed with Thiram at 3 g/kg seeds or with carbendazim at 2 g/kg seeds. Follow crop rotation, i.e., cereal-cereal-groundnut.

Yellow Mold Symptoms Seeds and non-emerged seedlings become shriveled and brownish. The cotyledons are covered with yellow or greenish yellow spores (Fig.).Decay is most rapid when infected seeds are sown.After seedling emergence there might not be any new infection.

Management

• Sow good quality and disease-free seed.  
• Avoid damage to the seed testa.
• Deep placement of seed at sowing.  
•  Treat the seed with Thiram at 3 g/kg seeds or with carbendazim at 2 g/kg seeds.
• Follow crop rotation, i.e., cereal-cereal-groundnut.

Diplodia Collar Rot Symptoms Seedlings or maturing plants are infected at or near the soil surface and the fungus quickly invades the stem. The first field symptom is wilting of lateral branches or the entire plant. Infected plants usually die within a few days. The base of the infected plants and the tap root become slate gray to black.

Rhizoctonia Damping-Off Symptoms Seedlings show sunken, elongate, dark brown areas just below the soil surface (Fig.).The lesions enlarge, become black, and girdle the hypocotyls (Fig.). Similar lesions develop on tap roots, and extend to the entire root system leading to dry root rot. Subsequently the plants are killed.