PP-402 (Mid Notes)

Lecture:1

Introduction to Plant Pathology:

Plant Pathology or Phytopathology: Pathology is derived from two Greek words (Pathos
‘‘Experience’’ or ‘‘suffering’’ logos ‘‘study’’). So, it’s called study of diseases.
Plant Pathology or Phytopathology may be defined as,
‘‘It is a science to study the plant diseases caused by plant pathogens’’.
Pathogen: An entity, usually a micro-organism that can cause the disease.
Parasite: Any Organism which lives feeds and multiplies on host and may cause disease.
Disease: Any deviation from normal functioning in a body.
Importance of the Plant Pathology: Plant pathology is challenging and globally important,
because enormous losses of the crops are caused by the plant diseases. The loss can occur
from the time of seed sowing in the field to harvesting and storage. Worldwide annual crop
losses are 36.5%; 14.1% is due to diseases, 10.2% due to insects and 12.2% is due to weeds.
Important historical evidences of plant disease epidemics are Irish Famine due to late blight
of potato (Ireland, 1845), Bengal famine due to brown spot of rice (India, 1942) and Coffee
rust (Sri Lanka, 1967). Such epidemics had left their effect on the economy of the affected
countries. It has a practical and noble goal of protecting the food available for humans and
animals. As a science, plant pathology tries to develop methods, equipment and materials
through which plant diseases can be managed and, at the same time, safeguarding our
environment. As the world population continues to increase while arable land and most other
natural resources continue to decrease, and as our environment becomes further congested
and stressed, the need for controlling plant diseases effectively and safely will become one of
the most basic necessities for feeding the hungry billions of our increasingly overpopulated
world.
Objectives of Plant Pathology
Plant Pathology (Phytopathology) deals with the etiology, epidemiology, resulting losses and
control or management of the plant diseases. The objectives of the Plant Pathology are:
o To study the causes (biotic & abiotic) of plant diseases
o To study the mechanism of plant disease development
o To study the interaction between plant and pathogen in relation to environment and
time
o To develop effective system of management of plant diseases to minimize the losses

Scope of Plant Pathology

Plant Pathology is a demanding subject with many allied Sciences. Plant pathology comprises
with the basic knowledge and technologies of Botany, Plant Anatomy, Plant Physiology,
Mycology, Bacteriology, Virology, Nematology, Genetics, Molecular Biology, Genetic
Engineering, Biochemistry, Horticulture, Tissue Culture, Soil Science, Forestry, Physics,
Chemistry, Meteorology, Statistics and many other branches of applied science.

Further Disciplines in Plant Pathology are, Plant Nematology, Plant Virology, Diagnostic
Plant Pathology, Plant Bacteriology, Plant Mycology, and Molecular Plant Pathology.
Causes of Plant Disease:
Plant diseases are caused by pathogens. Hence a pathogen is always associated with a
disease. In other way, disease is a symptom caused by the invasion of a pathogen that is able
 to survive, perpetuate and spread. Further, the word “pathogen” can be broadly defined as
any agent or factor that incites 'pathos or disease in an organism or host. In strict sense, the
causes of plant diseases are grouped under following categories:
1. Animate or biotic causes: Pathogens of living nature are categorized into the following
groups.
(i) Fungi (v) Algae
(ii) Bacteria (vi) Phanerogams
(iii) Phytoplasma (vii) Protozoa
(iv) Rickettsia-like organisms (viii) Nematodes
2. Mesobioticcauses:These disease incitants are neither living or non-living, e.g.
(i) Viruses
(ii) Viroides

3. Inanimate or abiotic causes: In true sense these factors cause damages (any reduction in
the quality or quantity of yield or loss of revenue) to the plants rather than causing disease.
The causes are:
(i) Deficiencies or excess of nutrients (e.g. ‘Khaira’ disease of rice due to Zn deficiency)
(ii) Light
(iii) Moisture
(iv) Temperature
(v) Air pollutants (e.g. black tip of mango)
(vi) Lack of oxygen (e.g. hollow and black heart of potato)
(vii) Toxicity of pesticides
(viii) Improper cultural practices
(ix) Abnormality in soil conditions (acidity, alkalinity)
Lecture:2
General symptoms of diseases caused by biotic and abiotic factors:
Symptoms of Plant Diseases
A visible or detectable abnormality expressed on the plant as a result of disease or disorder is
called symptom. The totality of symptoms is collectively called as syndrome while the
pathogen or its parts or products seen on the affected parts of a host plant is called sign.
Different types of disease symptoms are cited below:
Necrosis: It indicates the death of cells, tissues and organs resulting from infection by pathogen.
Necrotic symptoms include spots, blights, burn, canker, streaks, stripes, damping-off, rot etc.
Wilt: Withering and drooping of a plant starting from some leaves to growing tip occurs
suddenly or gradually. Wilting takes place due to blockage in the translocation system caused
by the pathogen.
Die-back: Drying of plant organs such as stem or branches which starts from the tip and
progresses gradually towards the main stem or trunk is called die-back or wither tip.
Mildew: White, grey or brown coloured superficial growth of the pathogen on the host surface is
called mildew.
Rusts: Numerous small pustules growing out through host epidermis which gives rusty (rust
formation on iron) appearance of the affected parts.
Smuts: Charcoal-like and black or purplish-black dust like masses developed on the affected
plant parts, mostly on floral organs and inflorescence are called smut.
Blotch: A large area of discolouration of a leaf, fruit etc. giving a blotchy appearance.
Hyperplasia: Hyperplasia is an increase in the number of cells in a tissue or organ.
Hypertrophy: Hypertrophy is excessive development of an organ or part.
Atrophy: It is known as hypoplasia or dwarfing which is resulted from the inhibition of growth
due to reduction in cell division or cell size.
Sclerotia: These are dark and hard structures of various shaped composed of dormant mycelia of
some fungi. Sometimes, sclerotia are developed on the affected parts of the plant. Presence of
sclerotia on the host surface is specifically called a sign of disease rather than symptom.
Some important terminologies in Plant Pathology:
1. Alternate host: One of two kinds of plants on which a parasitic fungus (e.g., rust) must
develop to complete its life cycle.
2. Appressorium: The swollen tip of a hypha or germ tube that facilitates attachment and
penetration of the host by a fungus.
3. Contamination: Intermixed with a pathogen, (of spore) not pure.
4. Disease cycle: The chain of events involved in disease development, of the pathogen and
the effect of the disease on the host.
5. Life cycle: The stage or successive stages in the growth and development of an organism
that occur between the appearance and reappearance of the same stage of the organism.
6.Syndrome: The set of varying symptoms characterizing a disease collectively called a
syndrome.
7. Facultative parasite: Occurs freely as saprophyte but they may also be parasites when
food & environment are favourable.
8. Facultative saprophyte: Originally parasite but after host death, can live as
Saprophytes.
9. Haustorium: A simple or branched projection of hyphae into host cells that acts as an
absorbing organ.
10. Hypha: A single branch of a mycelium.
11. Incubation period: The period of time between penetration of a host by a pathogen and
the first appearance of symptoms on the host.
12. Infection:The establishment of a parasite within a host plant following penetration.
13. Inoculum: The pathogen or its parts that can cause infection; that portion of individual
pathogens that are brought into contact with the host.
14. Mycelium: Mass of hyphae that make up the body of a fungus.
15. Obligate parasite: parasite which have not yet been grow apart from living cells. Can not
grow in culture eg. Rust, powdery mildew.
16. Primary infection: The first infection of a plant by the over wintering or over summering
pathogen.
17. Primary inoculum: The over wintering or over summering pathogen, or its spores that
cause primary infection.
18. Secondary infection:
An infection caused by secondary inoculum.
19. Secondary inoculums:
Inoculum produced by infections that take place during the same growing season.
20. Sign :Physical appearance of an organism
21. Symptoms:Visual observation of an organism
22. Vector :Used as a carrier in viral diseases
23. Disease triangle: The interaction between host, pathogen and environment in which
pathogen should be virulent, host should be susceptible and environment should be favorable
is called disease triangle.
24. Resistant:
Ability to restrict the disease
25.Susceptible: Organism which allow to attract the disease

Lecture:3

Classification of Plant Disease

To facilitate the study of plant diseases they are needed to be grouped in some orderly
fashion. Plant diseases can be grouped in various ways based on the symptoms or signs (rust,
smut, blight etc.), nature of infection (systemic or localized), habitat of the pathogens, mode
of perpetuation and spread (soil-, seed- and air-borne etc.), affected parts of the host (aerial,
root disease etc.), types of the plants (cereals, pulses, oilseed, ornamental, vegetable, forest
diseases etc.). But the most useful classification has been made based on the type of
pathogens that cause plant diseases. Since this type of classification indicates not only the
cause of the disease, but also the knowledge and information that suggest the probable
development and spread of disease alongwith their possible control measures. The
classification is as follows:
B) On the basis of their cause:
1. Infectious plant diseases:
a. Disease caused by parasitic organisms: The organisms included in animate or
biotic causes can incite diseases in plants.
b. Diseases caused by viruses and viroids.
2. Non-infectious or non-parasitic or physiological diseases: The factors included in
inanimate or abiotic causes can incite such diseases in plants under a set of suitable
environmental conditions.
B) On the basis of mode of primary infection:
1) Soil borne diseases: In these diseases, the pathogens survive in soil or on infested plant
debris lying in soil either as their resting spores or as mycelia strands and rhizomorphs. They
all attack the root system of host plants. Eg: Damping off (Pythium sp.),Seedling blight
(Phytophthora, Fusarium sp.)
2) Air borne diseases: Some pathogens infects the host plant through air and bring primary
as well as secondary infection. Eg: Rusts, Powdery mildews.Loose smuts bring about
secondary
infection through air.
3) Seed borne diseases: Some pathogens survive as dormant mycelium in the seeds or other
propagative structures of host plants. Eg. Loose smut of wheat (internally seed borne)
C) On the basis of plant parts affected:
1) Localized: If they affect only specific organs or parts of the plants. Eg.: Root Rot
2) Systemic: If entire plant is affected. Eg.: Downy mildew, damping off.
D) On the basis of group of causal organisms:
1) Fungal disease: Caused by plant pathogenic fungi. Eg. Anthracnose
2) Bacterial disease: Caused by plant pathogenic bacteria. Example: Citrus canker
3) Viral disease: Caused by plant viruses. Eg. Rice tungro disease
4) Phanerogamic phytopathogenic diseases:: Caused by phanerogamic
plant parasites. Eg. Striga, Cuscutta.
5) Nematode Diseases: Diseases caused by plant pathogenic nematodes. Eg. Ear cocle of
wheat.
E) On the basis of occurrence and consequent effects:
1) Endemic: When a diseases more or less constantly prevalent from year to year in a
moderate to severe form in a particular country. E.g., Wart disease of potato is endemic to
Darjeeling.
2) Sporadic : These diseases occurs at irregular intervals and location. Eg. Blights, Rusts.
3) Pandemic : These diseases occur all over the world and cause mass mortality. Eg. Late
blight of potato.
4) Epidemic or epiphytotic: A disease occurring periodically but in a severe form involving
major area of the crop. it may be constantly present in locality but assume severe form
occasionally . Eg. Rust, Late blight, Mildews.

Lecture:4

History of Plant Pathology

 Humans have been concerned with plant diseases since long ago. In earlier times, when wet
weather favored the development of plant disease, most or the entire crop was destroyed, and
famines resulted.
 Plant diseases are mentioned in some of the oldest books available (Old Testament, 750
B.C.).
 Theophrastus was a student of Aristotle and later became his successor in school. He wrote
two books on plants─ “The Nature of Plants” and “Reasons of Vegetable Growth” which
include the chapters on plant diseases as well. For these works, Theophrastus has been
considered the “father of botany.”
 Theophrastus and his contemporaries believed that plant diseases were a manifestation of
the wrath of gods.
 Mistletoe was recognized as the first plant pathogen by Albertus Magnus around 1200 A.D.
Its control is simple; by pruning affected branches.
 Very little useful knowledge was added about plants or plant diseases for the next 2000
years.
 There were outbreaks in Europe of ergotism, a disease of humans and animals caused by
eating grains contaminated with the fungus causing ergot disease in cereals, first reported by
Thoullier in 1670.  People normally believed that plant diseases were the result of
spontaneous generation, and the microorganisms and their spores were the result rather than
the cause of disease.
 1n mid-1600s, some French farmers noted that wheat rust was always more severe on wheat
near barberry bushes than away from them. The farmers thought the rust was produced by the
barberry plants from which it moved to wheat. They, therefore, asked the French government
to pass the first plant disease regulatory legislation that would force towns to cut and destroy
the barberry bushed to protect the wheat crop.
 In mid 1600s, Robert Hooke invented compound microscope and gave the concept of
“cell”.
 Leeuwenhoek improved the structure of microscope and examined the anatomy of plants,
fungi, algae, protozoa, blood cells, sperm cells, and bacteria.
 In 1729, the Italian botanist Pier Antonio Micheli described many new genera of fungi and
illustrated their reproductive structures. He proposed that fungi arise from their own spores
rather than spontaneously.
 Binomial nomenclature of plants was published by Carl von Linne’ in 1735.
 In 1743, Needham first observed nematodes inside wheat kernels.
 In 1755, the Frenchman Tillet worked on smut of wheat and found copper sulphate as a
chemical used in seed treatment.
 In 1807, Prevost repeated and expanded Tillet’s experiments and observed smut spores.
 In 1845, the epidemic of late blight of potato in Ireland.
 Charles Darwin, in 1859, published his book “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection” and gave the concept of evolution.
 In early 1860s, Anton deBary proved that potato late blight was caused by a fungus
(Phytophthora infestans).
 In early 1860s, Louis Pasteur established the “germ theory of disease”. The theory stated
that microorganisms were produced from preexisting microorganisms and that most
infectious diseases were caused by germs.
 In 1870s, Kuhn wrote the first book on plant pathology, “Diseases of Cultivated Crops,
Their Causes and Their Control”.
 Robert Petri developed artificial nutrient media for culturing microbes.
 In 1887, Robert Koch established that to prove that a certain microbe was the cause of a
particular disease, certain necessary steps must be carried out and certain conditions must be
satisfied (Koch’s postulates). Koch’s postulates became the standard procedure in plant
pathology for proving that a disease is caused by certain pathogen.
 In 1898, Martinus Beijerinck concluded that tobacco mosaic disease was caused by a
“contagium vivum fluidum” that he later called a virus.  In 1967, Doi and colleagues in
Japan observed mollicutes.
 In 1971, viroids were discovered by Diener and colleagues while they were studying potato
spindle tuber disease. Viroid is a small, naked, single-stranded, circular molecule of
infectious RNA.

Lecture:5

Koch’s Postulates

1. The suspected causal agent must be present in every diseased plant.

2. The suspected causal agent must be isolated from the diseased host organism (plant) and
grown in pure culture.
3. When a pure culture of the suspected causal agent is inoculated into a healthy susceptible
host (plant), the host must reproduce the specific disease.
4. The same causal agent must be recovered again from the experimentally inoculated and
infected host, i.e., the recovered agent must have the same characteristics as the organism in
step 2.

Lecture:6

Parasitism and Disease Development

Parasite is an organism that lives on or in some other organism and obtains its food from that
organism. A plant parasite is an organism that becomes associated with its host plant and
multiplies using plant resources. The removal of food by a parasite from its host is called
parasitism. Parasitism doesn’t always result in disease. In some cases of parasitism, both the
plant and the microorganism benefit from the association. This phenomenon is known as
symbiosis.

Any disease causing organism is called pathogen. The ability of a pathogen to cause disease
is known as pathogenicity. It can also be defined as the ability of the parasite to interfere
with one or more of the essential functions of the plant, thus causing disease.

Saprophyte is an organism that uses dead organic material for food.

Obligate parasites or biotrophs are the parasites which can grow and reproduce in nature
only in living hosts. Other parasites can live on either living or non-living hosts and on
various nutrient media, and they are therefore called non-obligate parasites. These are of
two types given below;

i. Facultative saprophytes live most of the time or most of their life cycles as
parasites, but under certain conditions, may grow saprophytically on dead organic
matter. (Basically parasites)
ii. Facultative parasites live most of the time or most of their life cycles as
saprophytes, but under certain conditions, may grow parasitically on living host.
(Basically saprophytes)
Obligate saprophytes or necrotrophs use dead organic material for food and cannot attack
a living host.

Stages in the Development of Disease: The Disease Cycle

Disease Cycle is defined as the chain of events involved in disease development, including
the stages of development of the pathogen and the effect of the disease on the host.

Figure: A disease cycle

Lecture:7

Relationship between Disease Cycle and Epidemics

Some pathogens complete only one disease cycle in 1 year, and are called monocyclic
pathogens. Diseases caused by monocyclic pathogens include smuts, tree rusts, root rots and
vascular wilts. In monocyclic pathogens, primary inoculum is the only inoculum available for
the entire season, as there is no secondary inoculum and secondary infection. In monocyclic
diseases, the amount of inoculum may increase steadily from year to year.
In most diseases, the pathogens complete more than one disease cycles (hence more
generations) in 1 year or growth season. Such pathogens are called polycyclic pathogens.
Polycyclic pathogens can complete many (from 2 to 30) cycles per year and with each cycle
the amount of inoculum is multiplied manyfold. These are responsible for the kinds of
diseases that cause severe epidemics on most crops, e.g. downy mildews, late blight of
potato, powdery mildews, leaf spots and blights, grain rusts and insect-borne viruses.
 Figure: Monocyclic (left) and polycyclic (right) plant diseases

In some diseases of trees, the pathogen may not complete a disease cycle in 1 year
and may take the following year or more. Such pathogens or diseases are called polyetic
(multiyear), e.g. fungal vascular wilts, viral infections and tree rusts.