Diagrammatic scale for assessment of rice brown spot severity

A diagrammatic scale with six levels of disease severity: 1.6; 3.2; 6.4; 12.6; 23.1 and 38.6% was developed and validated to assess rice brown spot, caused by Bipolaris oryzae. The scale was developed considering the maximum limit of disease severity observed in the field and the intermediate values followed logarithmic increases according to the Stimulus Law by Weber-Fechner. Initially, the estimatives of severity were performed without the use of the scale in 30 leaves with different levels of severity by eight people without previous experience in assessing diseases severity. Then, the same people estimated the severity of leaves using the proposed diagrammatic scale. Assessments with the diagrammatic scale were of great precision for all raters and did not presented systematic errors in over- or underestimating the disease severity. The proposed diagrammatic scale was considered adequate to estimate rice brown spot severity.