Although stem rust is mostly controlled by means of resistance cultivars, leaf and stripe rust continue to be major problems in many wheat-growing areas of the world. Wheat Rusts: An Atlas of Resistance Genes provides a basis to identify genes for resistance to stem, leaf and stripe rusts of wheat. Typical phenotypes associated with most known genes for resistance to the three rust diseases of wheat are illustrated in full colour. This book will assist the plant breeder to identify candidate resistance genes, thereby saving substantial time and resources before a single cross is made for genetic analysis. Prepared by well-known specialists from a leading international laboratory, Wheat Rusts: An Atlas of Resistance Genes comprises an introductory chapter, details of individual resistance genes, appendices and an index. Details for each gene include chromosome location, aspects of genetics and pathogen variation, the effect of environment on expression, origin, availability in genetic and breeding stocks, and use in agriculture. Audience: All wheat researchers including geneticists, pathologists, breeders and agronomists. This book is a unique and invaluable aid to all involved in developing wheats for resistance to the rust pathogens.

The Garden and Greenhouse Flowers manual is a reference manual on diseases which attack garden and greenhouse flowers. The manual identifies various types of diseases which are known to invade these plants located throughout North, Central, and South America.The recordings include diseases caused by fungi, bacteria, viruses, viroids, phytoplasmas, and nematodes. Causal disease agents are described and illustrated in some cases and diseases and disease control measures are also discussed. A manual such as this is never finished since new reports of diseases are continuously reported.

Sound formulation is a vital aspect of microbial products used to protect plants from pests and diseases and to improve plant performance. Formulation of Microbial Biopesticides is an in-depth treatment of this vitally important subject. Written by experts and carefully edited, this important title brings together a huge wealth of information for the first time within the covers of one book. The book is broadly divided into five sections, covering principles of formulation, organisms with peroral and contact modes of action, organisms with the power of search, and future trends. Each section contains comprehensive chapters written by internationally acknowledged experts in the areas covered; the book also includes three very useful appendices, cataloguing formulation additives, spray application criteria and terminology. This outstanding book is a vitally important reference work for anyone involved in the formulation of microbial biopesticides and should find a place on the shelves of agriculture and plant scientists, microbiologists and entomologists working in academic and commercial agrochemical situations, and in the libraries of all research establishments and companies where this exciting subject is researched, studied or taught.

Food legumes (pulses) playa role in human nutrition and more recently as animal feed, in the developing world. They contain minerals and vitamins essential for a balanced diet in humans. In many developing countries food legumes provide the necessary protein and amino acids (in predominantly vegetarian India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and Sri Lanka) and supplement the protein diet of people in other countries. Since 1980-82 per capita consumption has declined by 6 % in developing countries where relative pulse prices have gone up and consumption of animal protein (eg milk) has increased. The importance of legumes as animal feed is increasing. The compound growth rate for feed use during 1980-95 was 7. 97% compared to 1. 5% growth for food use during the same period (Kelly et aI. , 1997). As an integral part of farming systems, food legumes, in rotation with cereals and tuber crops, assist in maintaining soil fertility and the sustainability of production systems (Rego et aI. , 1996). Owing to higher prices in comparison with cereals, food legumes are increasingly being grown to supplement farmers' incomes. The major food legumes grown in developing countries are: dry bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), faba bean (Vicia faba), dry pea (Pisum sativum), chickpea (Cicer arietinum), lentil (Lens culinaris), mung bean (Vigna radiata), black gram (Vigna mungo) pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan) and Lathyrns ( Lathyrus sativus). Oil crops such as groundnut (Arachis hypogaea) and soybean (Glycine max) are food legumes but are not discussed in this paper.

The molecular mechanisms which determine whether the cells of a multicellular organism will live or commit suicide have become a popular field of research in biology during the last decade. Cell death research in the plant field has also been expanding rapidly in the past 5 years. This special volume of Plant Molecular Biology seeks to bring together examples of a diverse array of experimental approaches in a single volume. From the differentiation of tracheary elements in vascular plants to the more specialized cell death model of the aleurone in cereals, this volume will bring the reader up-to-date with the characterization of different plant model systems that are currently being studied. This endeavor should complement general overviews of plant cell death mechanisms that have been published elsewhere by providing more detailed information on various aspects of this field to interested graduate students and more senior biologists alike.

The book highlights the state of research in plant genetics and breeding and the results and applications of biotechnology procedures: i.e. achievements and perspectives of molecular biology and genetic engineering in the improvement of quantitative, qualitative and nutritional characters of crops, including their resistance to pests and diseases and their adaptation to different ecosystems. The book is divided into seven chapters. The first six are focused on the research aimed at improvement of resistance to Fungi, Bacteria, Nematode, Virus and Insect, and improvement of Quality. The latter was assigned two keynote lectures, respectively on agro-food quality and on quality of wood plants. Each chapter begins with a keynote paper. The seventh chapter includes the special lectures which opened and closed the Congress.

Several fundamental advances were announced at the Seventh International Symposium on Molecular Plant--Microbe Interactions held in Edinburgh in 1994. These included the cloning and identification of plant resistance genes involved in recognition of pathogens; the description of genetically engineered plants with novel resistance to pathogens; characterization of the molecular basis of pathogenicity of fungal and bacterial plant pathogens; and the mechanisms of communication used during recognition between symbiotic rhizobia and their host legumes. Participants in the Symposium contributed a series of papers that represent the leading edge of research in this important area of plant and microbial science. These articles are brought together to form this book, which will be essential reading for research workers, advanced students and others interested in keeping abreast of this rapidly developing area.

From February 24 -28, 1992 an international symposium on Durability of Disease Resistance was held at the International Agricultural Centre in Wageningen, the Netherlands. The symposium, organized by the Department of Plant Breeding of Wageningen Agricultural University and the Centre for Plant Breeding and Repro duction Research, CPRO-DLO, was part of the DGIS funded programme Durable Resistance in Developing Countries. Without any form of prevention or protection nearly all crops will be seriously or even severely damaged by a range of pathogens. In modern agriculture man has been able to control many if not most pathogens using i) pesticides, ii) phyto sanitary methods such as control of seed and plant material in order to start a crop disease free, iii) agronomic measures such as crop rotation, iv) disease resis tance or combinations of these measures. Over the years the use of pesticides has increased enormously and so did the pro blems associated with pesticide use, such as environmental pollution and building of resistance and tolerance to these pesticides in the pathogens. The use of resis tance too increased strongly over the years and here too problems arose.

In the past half century, filamentous fungi have grown in commercial importance not only in the food industry but also as sources of pharmaceutical agents for the treatment of infectious and metabolic diseases and of specialty proteins and enzymes used to process foods, fortify detergents, and perform biotransformations. The commercial impact of molds is also measured on a negative scale since some of these organisms are significant as pathogens of crop plants, agents of food spoilage, and sources of toxic and carcinogenic compounds. Recent advances in the molecular genetics of filamentous fungi are finding increased application in the pharmaceutical, agricultural, and enzyme industries, and this trend promises to continue as the genomics of fungi is explored and new techniques to speed genetic manipulation become available. This volume focuses on the filamentous fungi and highlights the advances of the past decade, both in methodology and in the understanding of genomic organization and regulation of gene and pathway expression.

Research on the mechanisms of plant defense responses to stress and pathogen attack has attracted much attention in recent years. This increasing interest stems from the fact that the tools of molecular biology now enable us to study the molecular basis of old biological concepts such as host-pathogen recognition (and particularly the gene for-gene relationship), hypersensitive cell death and systemic acquired resistance. Our knowledge about avirulence and resistance genes, elicitors, signal transduction and genes involved in plant defense is rapidly expanding. Moreover we are just beginning to test in planta the potential of these results for biotechnological applications, aimed at improving plant resistance to diseases. The 2nd Conference of the European Foundation for Plant Pathology, hosted by the "Societe Fran~aise de Phytopathologie", was devoted to "Mechanisms of plant defense responses" and was held in Strasbourg, France. It brought together over 350 scientists from universities, research institutes and private sectors of 24 countries. Major advances in the areas under study have been reviewed in plenary lectures and are developed in the main articles of this book. Over 160 high-quality posters were presented and are summarized in short articles. Data from outstanding posters, which were discussed after a short oral presentation, are found in extended articles. As a whole the book presents a collection of papers arranged in six sections and reflecting the present day state-of-the-art of research in the field of plant defense reactions.

In 1992 a Concerted Action Programme (CAP) was initiated by Peter Sijmons with the purpose of intensifying collaborations between 16 European laboratories working on plant-parasitic nematodes. The four-year programme entitled Resistance mechanisms against plant-parasitic nematodes' focused on molecular aspects of the interaction between sedentary nematodes and plants on the model system Arabidopsis and on novel resistance strategies. Funding was provided mainly for exchange visits between collaborating laboratories and for the organization of annual meetings. During the last annual meeting which was held in May 1996 in Toledo, Spain, Carmen Fenoll initiated the production of this volume. The book presents a series of up-to-date reviews, each written by one of the participating laboratories, which include the scientific progress achieved in the frame of this CAP but are by no means limited in scope to this work.

When I received an invitation to attend the International Symposium on Lethal Yellowing being organised by the Centro de Investigacion Cientifica de Yucatan (CICy), I was excited and a little nostalgic. During the 1970s, a series of similar symposia had been held under the auspices of the loosely-constituted "International Council on Lethal Yellowing" (ICL Y). These were the years when the MLO cause for L Y was first proposed, a vector was found, the disease was racing across mainland Florida, USA and it was suspected of having jumped to Cozumel. Analogous diseases were also reported to be spreading in Africa and elsewhere. The ICL Y meetings, held approximately every two years, proved to be an immensely valuable forum for all involved in the research and control of L Y. They attracted a very wide cross-section of scientists and practitioners working on L Y, on related diseases, and on palms in general. Many participants of those ICL Y meetings also attended this CICY Symposium. Unfortunately, during the 1980s, as countries learned to live with L Y, most of the national and international funding for L Y research dried up, and so did ICL Y. The present symposium is the only international meeting to have been devoted to L Y since the last meeting of rCLY in 1979. Its convening in Merida is timely.

Potato is the fourth major staple food in the world and is still rapidly gaining importance, especially in the tropics. In May, 1994 the second international potato modelling conference was held in Wageningen, the Netherlands, as a summerschool of the C. T. de Wit Graduate School. The conference was sponsored by DLO, SCRI, SSCR, W AU and the LEB-Fund. Over 80 scientists participated, coming from 16 countries. Of each crop physiological and modelling subject, a leading scientist was requested to write a review of the most recent developments in his or her field. The reviews, with highlights from the authors' own work, are such that the physiological work described is of interest to the modeller and the modelling work to the crop physiologist. Applications of the quantitative approach are also reviewed in the concluding chapters that deal with decision support systems, breeding and agro-ecological zoning. An outstanding point of this book is that both the crop ecology and the modelling of a broad range of biotic and abiotic factors are treated by scientists representing groups which are specialized in the subject. The two related disciplines met during the conference and thus wrote the chapters with each other's interest in mind. The book highlights the limitations for potato growth and development from the viewpoints of both the crop physiologist and the crop-systems analyst.

Experience shows that biotic stresses occur with different levels of intensity in nearly all agricultural areas around the world. The occurrence of insects, weeds and diseases caused by fungi, bacteria or viruses may not be relevant in a specific year but they usually harm yield in most years. Global warming has shifted the paradigm of biotic stresses in most growing areas, especially in the tropical countries, sparking intense discussions in scientific forums. This book was written with the idea of collecting in a single publication the most recent advances and discoveries concerning breeding for biotic stresses, covering all major classes of biotic challenges to agriculture and food production. Accordingly, it presents the state-of-the-art in plant stresses caused by all microorganisms, weeds and insects and how to breed for them. Complementing Plant Breeding for Abiotic Stress Tolerance, this book was written for scientists and students interested in learning how to breed for biotic stress scenarios, allowing them to develop a greater understanding of the basic mechanisms of resistance to biotic stresses and develop resistant cultivars.

Plants use resources, i.e. carbon, nutrients, water and energy, either for growth or to defend themselves from biotic and abiotic stresses. This volume provides a timely understanding of resource allocation and its regulation in plants, linking the molecular with biochemical and physiological-level processes. Ecological scenarios covered include competitors, pathogens, herbivores, mycorrhizae, soil microorganisms, carbon dioxide/ozone regimes, nitrogen and light availabilities. The validity of the Growth-Differentiation Balance Hypothesis is examined and novel theoretical concepts and approaches to modelling plant resource allocation are discussed. The results presented can be applied in plant breeding and engineering, as well as in resource-efficient stand management in agriculture and forestry.

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Allelopathy is an ecological phenomenon by which plants release organic chemicals (allelochemicals) into the environment influencing the growth and survival of other organisms. In this book, leading scientists in the field synthesize latest developments in allelopathy research with a special emphasis on its application in sustainable agriculture. The following topics are highlighted: Ecological implications, such as the role of allelopathy during the invasion of alien plant species; regional experiences with the application of allelopathy in agricultural systems and pest management; the use of microscopy for modeling allelopathy; allelopathy and abiotic stress tolerance; host allelopathy and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi; allelopathic interaction with plant nutrition; and the molecular mechanisms of allelopathy. This book is an invaluable source of information for scientists, teachers and advanced students in the fields of plant physiology, agriculture, ecology, environmental sciences, and molecular biology.

The fifth and last Volume of this IPMD series reviews, in a multi-disciplinary approach, recent achievements in crop protection and integrated management of arthropod pests. The volume is organized in a first Section covering IPM in citrus productions, a Second one dealing with advacements in the integratioon of management technologies and a last Section covering mites and their biological control agents. As for the previous volumes, we attempted to provide an informative coverage for a broad range of agricultural systems and situations. The chapters are mainly organized and centered on crops, with a particular emphasis on citrus. This is one of the main crops in which biological control and IPM approaches were tested successfully, and the experience gained herein may indeed result helpful for IMP efforts deployed worldwide on other crops and/or cropping systems. Chapters in Section 2 review the integration of insect and disease management options in pecan crops, the application of remote sensing technologies, the status of knowledge about plant defense compounds and their potentials. For IPM of invasive species, an update is provided on the experience gained on the Red Palm Weevil (RPW) in Egypt. Long-term technological solutions for IPM in forests and park areas through aerial treatments with Bt spores concludes this Section. Finally, in Section 3, updated reviews about biological control agents of mites are provided.

Seeds provide an efficient means in disseminating plant virus and viroid diseases. The success of modern agriculture depends on pathogen free seed with high yielding character and in turn disease management. There is a serious scientific concern about the transmission of plant viruses sexually through seed and asexually through plant propagules. The present book provides the latest information along with the total list of seed transmitted virus and viroid diseases at global level including, the yield losses, diagnostic techniques, mechanism of seed transmission, epidemiology and virus disease management aspects. Additional information is also provided on the transmission of plant virus and virus-like diseases through vegetative propagules. It is also well known that seed transmitted viruses are introduced into new countries and continents during large-scale traffic movements through infected germplasm and plant propogules. The latest diagnostic molecular techniques in different virus-host combinations along with disease management measures have been included. The book shall be a good reference source and also a text book to the research scientists, teachers, students of plant pathology, agriculture, horticulture, life sciences, green house managers, professional entrepreneurs, persons involved in quarantines and seed companies. This book has several important features of seed transmitted virus diseases and is a good informative source and thus deserves a place in almost all university libraries, seed companies and research organizations.

This book contains fuller versions of the papers and posters presented in the Knowledge and Technology Transfer and Teaching Plant Pathology sessions at the 9th International Congress of Plant Pathology held in Turin, Italy in 2008. Communication is an essential area for plant pathologists and it is not just the publication of results in the scientific press that is important. In a world where there is a major shortage of food and where a significant amount of it is destroyed by pests and diseases before it ever reaches the consumer, it is important to provide support to those who produce the food in order to reduce the losses. Reducing crop losses not only has an impact on health, but also wealth and, therefore, the ability to survive. With an ever-increasing demand on food supplies due to increases in population, and changes in life-style associated with rising incomes in certain parts of the world, plant pathologists have a pivotal role to play in contributing to global food security. Aspects of crop protection have lost favour with the general public because of concerns about environmental pollution and genetic modification of crops. This has had a 'knock on' effect in the recruitment and training of crop protectionist in g- eral and a concomitant impact on courses available at universities. However, it has never been more important to train people with good communication skills and an ability to solve problems to tackle the complexities of pathogen and plant interactions.

The protection of agricultural crops, forest, and man and his domestic animals from annoyance and damage by various kinds of pests remains a chronic problem. As we endeavor to improve pro duction processes and to develop more effective and acceptable tactics for achieving this protection, we must give high priority to all potentially useful techniques for the control and management of insects. Pest control is recognized as an acceptable and necessary part of modern agriculture. Methods employed vary greatly and tend to reflect compromises involving 3 determining factors: technological capability, economic feasibility, and social acceptability. How ever, these factors are also subject to change with time since each involves value judgments that are based on available information, cost, benefit considerations, the seriousness of the pest problem, and the political climate. Whatever method is chosen, energy resources continue to dwindle under the impact of increasing popu lation, and it is inevitable that greater reliance must be placed upon renewable resources in pest management. One alternative is the use of a pest management method that uses the energy of the pest's own biomass to fuel a self-perpetuating control system. The use of biological control agents for the control of pests has long been an integral part of the pest management strategy in crop production and forestry and in the protection of man and animals. The importance and unique advantages of the method are well recognized; numerous treatises deal with accomplishments and methodologies."

The Fruits and Vegetables manual is a reference manual on diseases which attack fruits (including berries), vegetables, and nuts. The manual identifies various types of diseases which are known to invade these plants located throughout North, Central, and South America. The recordings include diseases caused by fungi, bacteria, viruses, viroids, phytoplasmas, and nematodes. Causal disease agents are described and illustrated in some cases and diseases and disease control measures are also discussed. A manual such as this is never finished since new reports of diseases are continuously reported.

Studies related to pathogen-mediated virus resistance in plants were instrumental in providing some of the historical observations which ultimately led to the vital discovery of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA)-induced gene silencing or RNA interference (RNAi), which has since revolutionized research on plant-virus interactions. In Antiviral Resistance in Plants: Methods and Protocols, expert researchers in the field detail many of the methods which are now commonly used to study the phenomenon of RNA silencing in relation to viral infections of plants. These include methods and techniques for the isolation and quantitative/qualitative analyses of plant small 21-24 nucleotide RNAs such as small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) and microRNAs (miRNAs) as well as the analysis and manipulation of virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) in both monocotyledonous and dicotyledenous plants and the use of hairpin RNA (hpRNA) transgenes. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology (TM) series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and key tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and practical, Antiviral Resistance in Plants: Methods and Protocols seeks to aid scientists in the further study of this crucially important botanical trait.

Only 14 years have passed since the first publication appeared which implicated mycoplasmas as agents of plant disease. The diseases them selves have been known for much longer; indeed clover phyllody, a typical example, was described in the seventeenth century, well before any animal mycoplasma diseases had been documented. The early history of plant mycoplasmas is described in Chapter 2 and one obvious conclusion to be drawn from the frustrating experiences of the earlier workers is that the experimental methods at their disposal were simply inadequate for the task. Progress in science depends critically upon the development of new methods. Although important advances have been made in plant and insect mycoplasmology, notably in the discovery of spiroplasmas, many intractable problems remain. Most plant myco plasmas cannot yet be cultured in vitro, and their natural plant habitat, the phloem, is one of the most difficult plant tissues for the experi menter to handle, placing severe restrictions on the type of experiments which can be performed in vivo. It is clear that radically new methods may be required to solve these problems. A survey of the progress which has been made shows that application of techniques from a wide range of disciplines has been necessary. A successful individual or group of workers must possess the skills of a plant pathologist, a plantsman, a plant physiologist, a light-and electron microscopist, a bacteriologist, a biochemist, an immunologist, an ento mologist, a virologist and a molecular geneticist."

Plant disease management remains an important component of plant pathology and is more complex today than ever before including new innovation in diagnostic kits, the discovery of new modes of action of chemicals with low environmental impact, biological control agents with reliable and persistent activity, as well as the development of new plant varieties with durable disease resistance. This book is a collection of invited lectures given at the 9th International Congress of Plant Pathology (ICPP 2008), held in Torino, August 24-29, 2008 and is part of a series of volumes on Plant Pathology in the 21st Century. It focuses on new developments of disease management and provides an updated overview of the state of the art given by world experts in the different fields of disease management. The different chapters deal with basic aspects of disease management, mechanisms of action of biological control agents, innovation in fungicide application, exploitation of natural compounds and resistance strategies. Moreover, the management of soil-borne diseases and disease management in organic farming are covered.