University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore

A comprehensive book on principles of plant pathology for the pathologist and the students. Diseases of various crops and there various option for management presented in a readable form so that it would be student friendly. This book will definitely pave a way for the young aspiring, budding pathology minds to take up the subject with confidence. Attempts have been made in this book to deliver the core of the subject in a concise, easily assimilated form designed to compete for JRF, SRF, NET and ARS. It may be useful to seek admission in Ph.D. in plant pathology through entrance examinations of various institutions, and get through screening tests conducted by public service commission of various states for jobs in agriculture.

Introduction -- Survival of plant pathogens -- Dispersal / dissemination of plant pathogens -- Phenomenon of infection/infection process -- Pathogenesis -- Plant disease epidemiology -- Principles of plant disease management -- Plant quarantine and inspection -- Cultural methods -- Biological methods -- Physical methods -- Chemical methods -- Host plant resistance -- Application of biotechnology in plant disease management -- Integrated plant disease management (IPDM) -- Terminologies.

Plants are essential for maintenance of life. Plants not only sustain the man and animals, they are also the source of food for multitudes of micro-organisms living in the ecosystem. Thus, while man has been able to subjugate plants and animals for his own use, the competing micro-organisms still defy his efforts and claim a major share of resources which man would like to use for himself. It is in this context that the need for fighting the competing micro-organisms and other agencies that lack loss of productivity has been felt. The attack on plants by these micro-organisms changed the appearance and productivity of the crop and this observed change was called a disease. Plant diseases have been considered as stubborn barriers to the rapid progress of food production. We call a plant healthy only so long as it continues to perform all its normal physical activities and give the expected yield ding to its genetic potentiality.