Agricultural technologies, unlike many other technologies, have a major impact on human being and other life forms. This is because of the huge magnitude of this human activity - farming is spread over a major part of this planet's land and is the primary occupation of millions of people, but a great portion of the agricultural crops have been affected by the various fungal, bacterial and viral diseases. Among the different diseases, the plant viral disease causes the great damage to the agricultural and horticultural crops. Viruses are very small (submicroscopic) infectious particles composed of a protein coat and a nucleic acid core. They carry genetic information encoded in their nucleic acid, which typically specifies two or more proteins. The first requirement for the proper management of such diseases is the proper identification of the causative virus. Hence the systemic understanding of the various aspects of the plant disease, the adoption of the proper and relevant experimental methodology is of utmost importance.

Present studies on anthracnose of french bean caused by Colletotrichum lindemuthianum (Sacc. and Magn.) Bri. and Cav. conducted during 2003 and 2004 revealed that maximum disease incidence and severity was present in Poonch district followed by Rajouri and Doda. Minimum disease was recorded in Jammu district. Disease recurrence occurred through infected seeds and moderate temperatures (up to 300C) coupled with high relative humidity (>70%) favored the vertical and horizontal spread of disease. Gompertz model provided better fit and linearization of disease progress curves than logistic model. Twelve races were identified from different bean growing areas on the basis of reaction type on CIAT differentials. The races were designated as 11, 65, 73, 83, 279, 371, 395, 553, 563, 639, 741 and 935. Of these 11, 279, 371, 555, 563 and 741 were reported for the first time. In vitro studies revealed that Trichoderma viride 2 isolate, leaf extract of neem and among fungicides carbendazim and carboxin were found most effective in inhibiting mycelial growth of C. lindemuthianum