Maize is the 3rd most important crop in the Bihar next to rice and wheat. It is grown throughout the year in one or other part of state. Due to continuous cropping of maize and other factors like improper use of fertilizers, pesticides and climate change, the disease problem has increased in tremendous proportion. Almost all parts of the maize plant are susceptible to numerous diseases that considerably reduce the yield and quality of the crop. Among the various diseases of maize, banded leaf and sheath blight caused by most widespread, destructive and versatile pathogen Rhizoctonia solani f. sp. sasakii has attained the status of economically important disease. The disease is difficult to control through either fungicides or crop rotation alone due to its soil borne nature and unavailability of resistance source. | Is banded leaf and sheath blight a potential threat to maize cultivation in Bihar