AGC332: CROP DISEASES MANAGEMENT

(Lecture 6)
Stephen Mushimwa Chileshe
18 March 2021
stephenmushimwa@yahoo.com
Last time we met
• Plant hormones and diseases
• Effects of diseases on man and crop

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 EPIDEMIOLOGY:
DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS, DISPERSABILITY
& MEASUREMENT

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Disease gradient curve

CHARACTERISTICS OF FOLIAR PATHOGENS

 Foliar pathogens cannot sit and wait for a leaf to grow toward them.
 They must disperse through the air to their hosts.

 Wind dispersed spores tend to be large, dry and long-lived (a few days).

 Rainsplash-dispersed spores tend to be small, slimy and short-lived.

 Regardless of the means of dispersal, most spores land very close to their
point of origin and very few travel more than a few metres.
 Most foliar pathogens have secondary cycles within the season that allow for
spread of the disease, provided that conditions are suitable for infection.

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CHARACTERISTICS OF SOIL-BORNE DISEASES
Limited dispersal means that spores produced in a
crop are unlikely to spread to other plants within
the same crop.
Soil-borne diseases tend to occur in slowly-
expanding patches.
Because there are usually no secondary cycles, the
level of soil-borne disease in a crop depends on
how much inoculum is present in the soil at the
start of the season. 6
PLANT DISEASES DIAGNOSIS
 Plants in a field are rarely attacked by a single type of pathogen.
 For example, leaf spots and blotches caused by abiotic factors or bacteria are
often associated with spots and blotches caused by fungi.
 Such symptoms may be confused with those caused by the pathogen in
question and may be difficult to diagnose accurately.
 Inaccurate diagnosis of the pathogen in question as being present in the crop
early, while in reality it is not, will lead to premature recommendation to
spray and therefore to additional and unnecessary fungicide applications.
 It is therefore crucial that diagnosis is done correctly as it is the key to
accurate forecasting of any plant disease epidemic.
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RECOGNISING A PLANT DISEASE

 Accurate diagnosis of a plant disease depends on the identification

of the causal agent.
 Identification of a plant disease is considered complete when the
pathogen is:
1. Found on a diseased plant,

2. Identified by reference to special manuals, books etc. that have

pictures (e.g. compendia series of the American Phytopathology
Society can be used to help one narrow the likely causes of the
disease and often help one to identify its cause of crop diseases)
3. Known to cause such a disease. 8
KOCH’S POSTULATES
Definition
 These are methods of identification of a previously unknown disease.
 After detection of the pathogen on a diseased plant, the pathogen is identified with the help of authentic manuals and
reference materials
KOCH
 In 1887, Robert Koch (1843 –1910, a medical doctor and a bacteriologist) formulated a series of postulates to
identify the micro-organism as the cause of a disease.
 These postulates eliminate unrelated contaminants as the causal agent of a disease.
 These postulates are only possible to implement on micro-organisms that are readily cultured and some pathogens
cannot grow in artificial media but only in living cells of their hosts.
KOCH’S POSTULATES STEPS
1. The same organism must be present in every case of the disease.
2. The organism must be isolated from the diseased host and grown in pure culture.
3. The isolate must cause the disease, when inoculated into a healthy, susceptible plant.
4. The organism must be re-isolated from the inoculated, diseased plant.
 Find more literature on this issue start by going through this article:
Schneider, D. J., & Collmer, A. (2010). Studying plant-pathogen interactions in the genomics era: beyond 9
molecular Koch's postulates to systems biology. Annual review of phytopathology, 48, 457-479.