**5. Management through plant extracts**

The utilization of plant extracts in disease management is a contemporary eco-friendly approach and gaining attention bearing in mind that of its benefits over chemical pesticides. The advantages of such plant products are that they are easily biodegradable, without any residue, non-phytotoxic and are easily absorbed by the plants and cost-effective method. Plant products such as certain leaf extracts and plant oils could also be used to control rice false smut. A group of researchers investigated plant extracts under *in vitro* against rice false smut pathogen which was considerably inhibited by bulb extract of garlic (*Allium sativum*), rhizome extract of turmeric (*Curcuma longa*), leaf extracts of lantana (*Lantana camara*) and bael (*Aegle marmelos*), whereas plant oils lemon grass (*Cymbopogon flexuous*) cinnamon (*Cinnamomum zeylanicum*), and palmarosa (*Cymbopogon martinii*) oils that completely inhibited the *U. virens* growth [19]. Since, fungicides are harmful, plant extracts along with bio-agents offer safe solution to the management of false smut. Future research may focus to find out effective plant extracts to manage false smut disease in rice.
