Plant Pathology V1

Book excerpt: Plant Pathology: An Advanced Treatise, Volume I: The Diseased Plant presents an integrated synthesis of the scope, importance, and history of plant pathology, emphasizing the concept of disease, not of diseases. The book focuses on pathological processes, defense devices, predisposition, and therapy of the diseased plant. It explores the normal pathways that are obstructed in sick plants; how the pathogen causes dysfunction; and how the host plant reacts to the pathogen. This book also considers the logistics and the strategy of disease and how to combat it. This volume is organized into 15 chapters and begins with an overview of plant pathology, its history, and its relation to other sciences, along with plant predisposition to disease, and the resistance-susceptibility problem. The next chapters examine how sickness in plants is recognized and diagnosed, the tissue breakdown in diseases, and the effects of parasites on the processes in plants. The impact of disease on water balance and respiration in plants and the histology of disease resistance in plants are also explained. This volume also covers the physiological and chemical basis of defense by higher plants against potential or invading pathogens and the hypersensitivity concept in plant pathology. The final chapter discusses the physical and chemical therapy of the diseased plant. This book will appeal to all who are interested in a theoretical treatment of plant pathology and in the broad ecological relationships among organisms, as well as to research workers and advanced students of applied biology.