The Epidemiology of Plant Diseases


Book Description

Plant disease epidemiology is a dynamic science that forms an essential part of the study of plant pathology. This book brings together a team of 35 international experts. Each chapter deals with an essential component of the subject and allows the reader to fully understand how each exerts its influence on the progress of pathogen populations in plant populations over a defined time scale. This edition has new, revised and updated chapters.




Phytophthora


Book Description

Biology of Phythophthora; Taxonomy of Phytophthora; Ecology of Phytophthora; Pathology of Phytophthora.




The Potato Crop


Book Description

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book provides a fresh, updated and science-based perspective on the current status and prospects of the diverse array of topics related to the potato, and was written by distinguished scientists with hands-on global experience in research aspects related to potato. The potato is the third most important global food crop in terms of consumption. Being the only vegetatively propagated species among the world’s main five staple crops creates both issues and opportunities for the potato: on the one hand, this constrains the speed of its geographic expansion and its options for international commercialization and distribution when compared with commodity crops such as maize, wheat or rice. On the other, it provides an effective insulation against speculation and unforeseen spikes in commodity prices, since the potato does not represent a good traded on global markets. These two factors highlight the underappreciated and underrated role of the potato as a dependable nutrition security crop, one that can mitigate turmoil in world food supply and demand and political instability in some developing countries. Increasingly, the global role of the potato has expanded from a profitable crop in developing countries to a crop providing income and nutrition security in developing ones. This book will appeal to academics and students of crop sciences, but also policy makers and other stakeholders involved in the potato and its contribution to humankind’s food security.




Oomycete Genetics and Genomics


Book Description

This book brings together the knowledge from and tools for genetic and genomic research into oomycetes to help solve the problems this pathogen poses to crops and animals. Armed with the information presented here, researchers can use oomycete data to solve practical problems and gain insight into future areas of interest. Key Features: Offers an up-to-date coverage of research into oomycetes – which has advanced with biochemical and molecular analyses in recent years Helps researchers use oomycete data to solve practical problems, like damage to crop and animal resources Includes a section on interactions with animal hosts Offers perspective on future areas of research Assembles an international author base




Comprehensive and Molecular Phytopathology


Book Description

This book offers a collection of information on successive steps of molecular 'dialogue' between plants and pathogens. It additionally presents data that reflects intrinsic logic of plant-parasite interactions. New findings discussed include: host and non-host resistance, specific and nonspecific elicitors, elicitors and suppressors, and plant and animal immunity. This book enables the reader to understand how to promote or prevent disease development, and allows them to systematize their own ideas of plant-pathogen interactions.* Offers a more extensive scope of the problem as compared to other books in the market* Presents data to allow consideration of host-parasite relationships in dynamics and reveals interrelations between pathogenicity and resistance factors* Discusses beneficial plant-microbe interactions and practical aspects of molecular investigations of plant-parasite relationships* Compares historical study of common and specific features of plant immunity with animal immunity




Potato


Book Description

The potato--humble, lumpy, bland, familiar--is a decidedly unglamorous staple of the dinner table. Or is it? John Reader's narrative on the role of the potato in world history suggests we may be underestimating this remarkable tuber. From domestication in Peru 8,000 years ago to its status today as the world's fourth largest food crop, the potato has played a starring--or at least supporting--role in many chapters of human history. In this witty and engaging book, Reader opens our eyes to the power of the potato. Whether embraced as the solution to hunger or wielded as a weapon of exploitation, blamed for famine and death or recognized for spurring progress, the potato has often changed the course of human events. Reader focuses on sixteenth-century South America, where the indigenous potato enabled Spanish conquerors to feed thousands of conscripted native people; eighteenth-century Europe, where the nutrition-packed potato brought about a population explosion; and today's global world, where the potato is an essential food source but also the world's most chemically-dependent crop. Where potatoes have been adopted as a staple food, social change has always followed. It may be "just" a humble vegetable, John Reader shows, yet the history of the potato has been anything but dull.




Phytophthora


Book Description

This book begins with an account of the early history of Phytophthora research and the tumultuous events setting the genus in motion. In keeping with its controversial inception, the chapter on taxonomy and phylogeny makes a compelling case that our current notion of Phytophthora as a genus is illusory. This chapter sets the stage for the importance of molecular tools on these enigmatic pathogens. The following chapters discuss species identification, population-level investigation, interspecific hybrids and the impact of diverse Phytophthora species on crops, forests, nurseries, greenhouses and natural areas worldwide.




Wildlife Disease Ecology


Book Description

Introduces readers to key case studies that illustrate how theory and data can be integrated to understand wildlife disease ecology.




Principles of Plant Infection


Book Description

Principles of Plant Infection investigates interactions among pathogens, host plants, the environment, time and space, and their role in plant infection. It describes the principles of infection, particularly of the root, stem, or leaf, as they apply to fungi, bacteria, or viruses. It also highlights the dual nature of resistance and suggests theories of host resistance. Organized into seven chapters, this volume begins with an overview of the relation between the amount of inoculum and the amount of disease it causes. It then turns to a discussion of the disease/inoculum relations of tobacco mosaic virus; how obligate synergism restricts the transmission of pathogens; disease/inoculum relations in root disease; the independent action of spores as inoculum; variable factors other than the amount of inoculum that affect plant disease; and time as a determining factor of the degree of plant infection. The reader is also introduced to endemic disease of plants, the implications of endemicity for plant resistance to disease, the spread of disease via migration of pathogens, and the genetics of host-pathogen interactions. Plant pathologists and plant breeders will gain valuable information from this book.