CHAPTER EIGHT

PLANT DISEASE MANAGEMENT

 What is disease
management?

Disease management is the practice of minimising disease

in crops to increase quantity or quality of harvest yield
 Plant Disease Control/Management Methods

The study of the symptoms, causes, and mechanisms of development of plant

diseases has an extremely practical purpose.

It allows for the development of methods to combat plant diseases.

Control increases the quantity and improves the quality of plant products
available for use.

Methods of control vary considerably from one disease to another depending on:
– the kind of pathogen
– the host

– and many other variables.

 Cont…
Almost all control methods are aimed at protecting plants from becoming
diseased rather than at curing them after they have become diseased.
The various control methods:

– Regulatory
– Cultural
– Biological

– Physical
– Chemical
– depending on the nature of the agents employed.
 Cont…
Regulatory control measures: aim at excluding a pathogen from a host or from a
certain geographic area.
Cultural control methods:

– helping plants avoid contact with a pathogen.

– creating environmental conditions unfavourable to the pathogen.
– eradicating or reducing the amount of a pathogen in a plant.

A new type of biological control involves the transfer of genetic material (DNA)
into plants and the generation of transgenic plants that exhibit resistance to a
certain disease(s).
Physical and chemical methods aim at protecting the plants from pathogen
inoculum that has arrived or curing an infection that is already in progress.
 Cultural Methods
CMs that eradicate or reduce the inoculum.
– crop rotation
– host eradication
– sanitation
– creating conditions unfavorable to the pathogen

– spacing
– deep ploughing.
– tillage
 Host eradication

It involves elimination of a pathogen once it has become established on a plant or

in a field.
It can be accomplished by:
– removal of diseased plants or parts as in roguing to control virus diseases or
cutting off a cankered tree limb.
– cultivating to keep down weed hosts and deep ploughing.
– rotation of susceptible with non-susceptible crops to starve out the pathogen.
– disinfection usually by chemicals, sometimes by heat treatment.
– spraying or dusting with sulphur to kill the mildew mycelium.
– treating the soil with chloropicrin to kill nematodes and fungi.
– soil treatment with various nematicides
 Crop rotation

Soil borne pathogens that infect plants of one or a few species or even families
of plants can sometimes be reduced in the soil by planting non-host crops for 3
or 4 years.

Satisfactory control through crop rotation is possible with pathogens that are soil
invaders, i.e., survive only on living plants or only as long as the host residue
persists as a substrate for their saprophytic existence.

When the pathogen is a soil inhabitant, however, i.e., produces long-lived spores
or can live as a saprophyte for more than 5 or 6 years, crop rotation becomes
less effective or impractical.
 Sanitation

Sanitation consists of all activities aimed at eliminating or reducing the amount

of inoculum present in a plant, field or a warehouse and at preventing the spread
of the pathogen to other healthy plants and plant products.
– ploughing under infected plants after harvest, such as leftover infected fruit,
tubers or leaves, helps cover the inoculum with soil and speed up its
disintegration and concurrent destruction of most pathogens carried in or on
them.

– removing the infected leaves of house or garden plants helps remove or

reduce the inoculum.
– infected crop debris of grasses and rice crops is destroyed by burning in
some parts of world, which reduces or eliminates the surface inoculum of
several pathogens.
 Cont…
– by washing their hands before handling certain kinds of plants, such as
tomatoes, workers who smoke may reduce the spread of tobacco mosaic
virus.
– disinfecting the knives used to cut propagative stock, such as potato tuber
and disinfecting pruning shears between trees reduce the spread of pathogen
through such tools.
– washing the soil of farm equipment before moving it from one field to
another may also help in preventing the spread of pathogens present in the
soil.
Practices for creating conditions unfavorable to the pathogen

– stored product should be aerated properly to hasten the drying of their

surface and inhibit germination and infection by any fungal or bacterial
pathogens present on them.
– the appropriate choice of fertilizers or soil amendments may also lead to
change in the soil pH, which may unfavourably influence the development
of pathogen.

– using decomposed tree bark in the planting medium has resulted in the
successful control of diseases caused by several soil borne pathogens.
e.g. Phytophthora, Pythium and Thielaviopsis, causing root rots ,
Rhizoctonia causing damping off and crown rot, Fusarium causing wilt,
and nematode diseases of several crops.
 Biological Methods

Biological control of plant pathogens refers to the total or partial destruction of

pathogen population by other organisms.
occurs routinely in nature.

Suppressive soil:
– unfavourable soil for the pathogen development.
– contains microorganisms antagonistic to the pathogen or because the plant
that is attacked by a pathogen has also been inoculated naturally with
antagonistic microorganisms before or after the pathogen attack.

– Sometimes, the antagonistic microorganisms may consist of avirulent strains

of the same pathogen that destroy or inhibit the development of the
pathogen, as happens in hypovirulence and cross protection.
 Cont…
Reducing amount of inoculum through antagonistic microorganisms.
Control of soil borne pathogens

Control of aerial pathogens

 control through trap plants.
 control through antagonistic plants.

 use of resistant varieties.

 Use of transgenic biocontrol microorganisms.
 Cont…
 Direct protection by biological control agents.
– gliocladium virens: for the control of seedling diseases of ornamental and
bedding plants

– trichoderma harzianum: for the control of several plant pathogenic fungi

– trichoderma polysporum: for the control of wood decays
– agrobacterium radiobacter k-84: for the control of crown gall

– pseudomonas fluorescens: against rhizoctonia and pythium causing

damping off and other diseases
– bacillus subtilis: used as a seed treatment.
CHEMICAL CONTROL OF PLANT DISEASES

Home Work
What is chemical
control of plant disease?
 Pesticides and methods of application
 Pesticides: chemicals used for controlling insect pests, diseases and weeds.
 Fungicides: chemicals used for controlling fungal diseases.

 Viricides: chemicals those used against viruses.

 Antibiotics: chemicals generally used for controlling bacterial disease.
 Rodenticides: chemicals used for controlling rodents.

One of the important or common mean of controlling the plant diseases is

through chemical compounds which are toxic to the pathogens.
– these chemicals inhibit the germination, growth and multiplication of the
pathogen or are lethal to the pathogen.
 Cont…
What is pesticide?
A pesticide is a substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing,
destroying, repelling, or lessening the damage of any pest.

Classification of chemical pesticides.

 Based on mode of entry
• systemic pesticides

• non-systemic (contact) pesticides

• stomach poisoning and stomach toxicants
• fumigants

• repellents
 Cont…
 Based on pesticide function and
pest organism they kill.
– Insecticides
– Fungicides – Rodenticides

– Bactericides – Repellents

– Herbicides – Molluscicides

– Termiticides – Nematicides
 Cont…
 Based on chemical composition of pesticides:
– organochlorine
– organophosphates
– carbamates
– synthetic pyrethroids.
 Other minor classes of pesticides
 Classification based on mode of action:
– physical poison
– protoplasmic poison
– respiratory poison
– nerve poison

– chitin inhibition
 Cont…
 Classification based on sources of origin:
– microbial pesticides
– plant incorporated protectants
– biochemical pesticides.
 Based on range of target it kills:
– broad spectrum pesticides: to kill a wide range of pests and other non-
target organisms
– selective pesticides: pesticides which kill only a specific or group of pests
leaving other organisms unaffected or with a little effect
 Cont…
 Based on types of pesticide formulation:
– Liquids
– Powders
– Granules
– Baits

– Dust
– Ultra low volume liquid
Discuss impact of pesticides on
human health and environment?
 Cont…
Methods of applications of fungicides:
– spraying and dusting
– soil treatment
– fumigation
– disinfection of warehouses
– seed treatment
– tree wound treatment
– post harvest treatment
 USE OF RESISTANT VARIETIES IN PLANT DISEASE MANAGEMENT

 Use of resistant varieties for crop cultivation provides the most cost-effective,
the easiest, and the safest of all the methods used for disease control.
 “painless method”.

 costs little to the farmer.

Cultivation of resistant varieties provides probably the only means of

producing acceptable yields without using toxic compounds for many diseases
like the vascular wilts, viral diseases, cereal rusts, powdery mildews, and root
rots and etc.

Resistant varieties could be effectively used only in limited number of cases

against the diseases of forest and fruit tree.
 Cont…
Resistance break down.

– As the new race takes over, resistance of the old variety is no longer effective.

– Depending on the genetic plasticity of the pathogen and the particular gene or
combination of genes involved in host resistance, resistant varieties with only
vertical resistance, need to be replaced periodically.

– This means that breeding programmes for new resistant varieties has to
continue so that some new varieties can be kept in readiness for the
replacement of the old ones in case of any eventuality.

– genetic engineering techniques would come to the aid of such breeding

programmes and make it possible for a quick transfer of individual genes or a
combination of such genes to preferred susceptible host varieties in a much
shorter time.
 Cont…
Maintenance of resistance:
– disease management strategies, such as sanitation, seed treatment or use of
fungicide reduce the exposure of resistant variety to large pathogen
population.
– for pathogens with low inoculum production and slow dispersal rate,
resistance of the host variety usually lasts longer.
– the use of varietal mixtures has been widely used in a variety of crops as a
possible measure in disease control in cereals, legumes and potatoes.
– a cultivar mixture is simply compounded by mixing seeds of cultivars on the
basis of their predicted performance.
– diversification of resistance naturally presents the pathogen with a difficult
target than in the traditional monoculture
 Cont…

multiline varieties

reliable resistance

breeding of resistant varieties

source of resistance
 What is integrated plant
disease management ?

“All suitable techniques and methods in a manner as compatible as

possible and maintains the disease below economic level”
 Integrated plant disease management

 Integrated disease management (IDM) came under focus in 1960‘s when

chemicals especially, fungicides and insecticides came under the attack from
environmentalists due to the overuse of chemicals that created the problems of
environmental pollution, chemical residues in food stuff, land, water and air,
and the associated health hazards.
– It focused on the other methods of disease control.

– It involved cultural, biological, epidemiological and alternative means to

achieve the disease control.
– Nowadays, there is an emphasis on disease “management” rather than on
“Control”
Different Approaches of Integrated Disease Management System

The combined control approach:

– combination of control methods like adjustment in sowing time, seed
treatment, use of resistant variety, chemical spray schedule etc.

– widely practiced as a package of practice where the occurrence of disease is

certain and sure.
The surveillance based approach:
– it is an advanced IDM approach based on crop health monitoring and
surveillance, and takes into account the economic threshold levels or
economic damage levels.
 Cont…

Advanced integrated disease management system:

It involves the high input technology like computer supported forecasting,

remote sensing, scouting, multiple pathogen thresholds, information on life
cycle of pathogens, epidemiology of diseases, environmental factor and
knowledge based decision making.
 Main components of integrated disease management (IDM)

Host resistance
Induced systemic resistance

Genetically improved plants

Cultural practices
Physical methods

Plant nutrition
Biological control
Use of pesticides of plant origin

Judicious use of chemicals

 Host resistance
Resistant varieties can be the simple, practical, effective and economical
method of plant disease control.
Apart from ensuring protection from diseases, they can also save time, money
and energy spent on other methods of control and avoid environmental
pollution with chemicals.

They are the only practical method of controlling such diseases as wilts, rusts
and others caused by viruses in which chemical control is very expensive and
impractical.
In low value crops, where other methods are often too expensive, development
of varieties resistant to common and important diseases can be an acceptable
recommendation for the farm.
 Cont…
Advantages of host plant resistance:
– No adverse effect on environment and man, rather the resistant cultivars
put a constant and cumulative effect on pathogen.
– Host plant involves no extra cost to the farmers and does not require inputs
and application skill.
Disadvantages of host plant resistance:
– the development of pathogen resistant variety takes 5-10 years.
– host plant resistance can put a selection pressure on pathogen to the extent
that it may lead to the evolution of new biotypes of pathogen.
– introduction of varieties with resistance to one pathogen leads to the
emergence of new pathogen problem because of the absence of
competition from the key pathogen.
 Cont…
 Induction of host resistance  Biological control
 Genetically improved plants
 Integration of different cultural
practices:
crop rotation
mulching soil sterilization
tillage change in date of sowing
different soil amendments plant spacing
soil solarization
 Physical methods of disease control
 Cont…
Types of integrated disease management:
– Integration of cultural and chemical control
– Integration of chemical and biological control
• Pseudomonas fluorescens
• Trichoderma viride
• T. harzianum
• Bacillus subtilis
• Pseudomonas putida
– Integration of resistance, cultural, biological and chemical control