NAME : SYEDA ALISHBA SHERAZ

BUKHARi

PLANT PATHOLOGY

Q NO 1: Give detailed history of plant pathology?

PLANT PATHOLOGY:
Plant Pathology is defined as the study of the organisms and environmental
conditions that cause disease in plants, the mechanisms by which this occurs, the
interactions between these causal agents and the plant (effects on plant growth,
yield and quality), and the methods of managing or controlling plant disease.
Father of plant pathology:
Heinrich Anton de Barry (26 January 1831 – 19 January 1888) was a German
surgeon, botanist, microbiologist, and mycologist (fungal systematic and
physiology). He is considered a founding father of plant pathology
(physiopathology) as well as the founder of modern mycology.

HISTORY OF PLANT PATHOLGY:

Aristotle, Plato's student, recorded plant diseases as early as 350 B.C., and his
colleague Theophrastus observed and speculated about diseases of cereals,
legumes, and trees. Evidently, plant diseases were destructive in ancient times
and the people lived in fear of famine.
 Plant diseases were mentioned in some of the oldest book available, (e.g.-
Homer, c. 1000 B.C., Old testament, 750 B.C.) and were feared as much as
human diseases and war. Homer mentioned the therapeutic properties of
 Theophrastous (300 B.C.) included a chapter in his book “Reasons of
vegetable Growth” about the influence of disease on plant. He also
believed that plant disease is the wrath of God.

 Albertus Magnus, around 1200 A.D. proposed that mistletoe is a parasite

and can be controlled by pruning of the infected part

 In the mid-1600s, a group of French farmers noted that wheat rust is more
severe near barberry bushes than away. They thought rust is produced by
barberry plants.
 In 1729, the Italian botanist Pier Antonio Micheli described many new
genera of fungi and proposed that fungi arise from their own spore rather
than spontaneously.
 In 1735, Frenchman Tillet showed that he could increase the number of
wheat plants developing cover smut by dusting infected wheat kernels and
could reduce the number of smutted wheat plants by treating the smut-
treated kernels with copper sulfate. He concluded erratically that it was
poisonous substance contained in the smut dust, rather than the living
spores and fungus coming from them.

 Prevost, in 1807, observed smut spores under microscope and found that
smut spores from wheat seed treated with copper sulfate failed to
germinate, whereas those from untreated seed germinated and grew. He
 concluded rightly that it was the smut spores which cause smut disease in
wheat. His opinion was rejected by French Academy of Science.

 In 1861, Anton de Bary proved that potato late blight was caused by a
fungus, Phytophthora infestans. He also showed that the fungus survive the
winter in partially infected tuber in the field or in the storage. In the spring,
the fungus produced new spores on infected plant and spread to healthy
plant, cause disease and killed. He is regard as father of Plant Pathology .
 Anton de Bary - The Father of Plant Pathology. He was the first to
determine and prove conclusively that P. infestans caused the Irish potato
famine in 1861.

 At the same time (1860-1863), Louise Pasteur provided evidence that

microorganisms arise only from preexisting microorganisms and most
infectious diseases are caused by germs. It is known as Germ Theory.
 In 1887, Robert Koch set out four criteria that must be satisfied before a
microorganisms can be considered as the cause of disease. These are
known as Koch's postulate;
 The organism must be present in the symptoms,
 the organism must be isolated and grown in pure culture,
 when the organism is inoculated into a healthy plant, the host must
reproduce the same symptoms,
 The recovered organisms must have same characters as the original
organism.
 Robert Koch - German microbiologist working with anthrax of sheep who
developed a protocol for providing pathogen city in 1876.
 In 1885 French Professor Pierre Alexis Millardet discovered bordeaux
mixture for the control of downy mildew disease of grape vine.
Millardet found best combination of CuSo4: Lime: Water= 8: 8: 100
for controlling downy mildew affected vine
 Alexis Millardet - The name of the man who, in 1885,
developed/discovered the first fungicide - Bordeaux mixture.

Diseases were often blamed on the gods:

Once it was thought that gods and goddesses controlled natural
events. The Greek goddess of the harvest was Demeter, while the
Roman equivalent was Ceres.

Ergotism & Witchcraft:

• 990 – 1129AD, ergotism believed to have killed 50,000 people in
South of France
• 1692 – convulsive ergotism may have caused symptoms that led to
the Salem Witch Trials (USA) in which 20 people were executed
• 1926 – 11,000 victims in USSR
• 1927 - Manchester, UK >200 cases
• 1951 - French Epidemic, approx. 150 cases.
 Potato Blight:
 Blighted potato leaves caused by the oomycete Phytophthora
infestans (21) Infection will spread rapidly through the entire
plant.
 Dublin memorial to the 1.5 million killed by starvation during
the Irish Potato Famine, 1845-52 (22)

Q no 2 Give basic characteristics of fungi, bacteria, viruses and nematodes.

CHARACTERISTICS OF BACTERIA:
•Prokaryotic microscopic organisms
 Free living single cells, or
 Filamentous colonies
•Reproduce via binary fission
 2 daughter cells are identical to mother cell
•Don’t usually produce resistant resting spores
 Need host or growth medium to survive
•For rapid spread, plant infecting bacteria usually
require:
 Warmth
 Moist conditions
Bacteria are single-celled organisms. They lack organelles such as chloroplasts and
mitochondria, and they do not have the true nucleus found in eukaryotic cells.
Instead, their DNA, a double strand that is continuous and circular, is located in
a nucleoid. The nucleoid is an irregularly shaped region that does not have
a nuclear membrane. Bacteria also have a cell membrane and a cell wall that is
often made of peptidoglycan. Together, the cell membrane and cell wall are
referred to as the cell envelope. Many bacteria need a cell wall in order to
survive.

Reproduction occurs through binary fission, which is the splitting of a bacterial cell

after it reaches a certain size. Bacteria reproduce asexually, so the two daughter
cells that result from binary fission have the same DNA as the parent cell.
 However, some bacteria can also exchange genetic material among one another
in a process known as horizontal gene transfer. This method involves two already
existing bacteria; it is not a form of transmission from parent to child.

 Single-Celled. Perhaps the most straightforward characteristic of bacteria is their

existence as single-celled organisms
 Absent Organelles
 Plasma Membrane
 Cell Walls
 DNA

CHARACTERISTICS OF FUNGI:
 Filamentous (hyphae) form a network of mycelium (lots of hyphae)

 Recognized by reproductive structures (mushrooms, rusts, conks, etc.)

 Most of the 100,000 spp. are saprophytes

 Live on dead organic matter
 Approximately 8,000 species attack plant
 Plant pathogens
Fungi are heterotrophic: they use complex organic compounds as sources of
energy and carbon, not photosynthesis. Fungi multiply either asexually, sexually,
or both. The majority of fungi produce spores, which are defined as
haploid cells that can undergo mitosis to form multicellular, haploid individuals
They are characterized by filamentous, vegetative cells called hyphae.
Many fungi occur not as hyphae but as unicellular forms called yeasts, which
reproduce vegetatively by budding.

Following are the important characteristics of fungi:

 Fungi are eukaryotic, non-vascular, non-motile and heterotrophic
organisms.
 They may be unicellular or filamentous.
 They reproduce by means of spores.
 Fungi exhibit the phenomenon of alternation of generation.
 Fungi lack chlorophyll and hence cannot perform photosynthesis.
 Fungi store their food in the form of starch.
 Biosynthesis of chitin occurs in fungi.
 The nuclei of the fungi are very small.
 The fungi have no embryonic stage. They develop from the spores.
 The mode of reproduction is sexual or asexual.
 Some fungi are parasitic and can infect the host.
 Fungi produce a chemical called pheromone which leads to sexual
reproduction in fungi.
 Examples include mushrooms, moulds, yeast

CHARACTERISTICS OF VIRUSES:

•Viruses are obligate parasites: They can only replicate themselves within a host's
cell.
•In the virus infected plant, production of chlorophyll may cease (chlorosis,
necrosis)

•Cells may either grow and divide rapidly or may grow very slowly and be unable
to divide
 Non living structures.
 Non-cellular.
 Contain a protein coat called the capsid
 Have a nucleic acid core containing DNA or RNA (one or the other - not
both)
 Capable of reproducing only when inside a HOST cell.
Virus classification is very important for virus research. It is also an extremely
difficult task for many virus families. Traditionally, virus classification relied on
properties such as virion morphology, genome organization, replication
mechanism, serology, natural host range, mode of transmission, and
pathogenicity. Yet viruses sharing the above properties can reveal tremendous
differences at the genome level. For example, classification of many phages is
currently based on presence, structure, and length of a tail and this approach has
been shown not to correlate with genomic information, leading to a very difficult
situation and hundreds of unclassified phages.
Molecular virus classification based on virus sequences has been used increasingly
in recent years, thanks to the growing number of viral sequences available in the
public sequence databases. The most commonly used sequence comparison
methods include multiple sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis. Another
molecular classification method that has drawn more and more attention from
virologists is pairwise sequence comparison (PASC). In this article, we briefly
describe various sequence comparison methods, introduce the PASC tool, and
compare it with other methods
According to the seven characteristics of life, all living beings must be able to
respond to stimuli; grow over time; produce offspring; maintain a stable body
temperature; metabolize energy; consist of one or more cells; and adapt to their
environment. However, some life-forms don't fit every single characteristic.
CARACTERISTICS OF NEMATODES :

•Microscopic roundworms
 Barely visible with naked eye
 No segments
•Up to 4mm long
•Clear or transparent
•Feed with stylet
 Pierce plants (pests)
 Kill arthropods (beneficials
Following are the important characteristics of Nematoda:
 Their body is bilaterally symmetrical and triploblastic.
 They are cylindrical in shape.
 They exhibit tissue level organization.
 Their body has a cavity or pseudocoelom.
 The alimentary canal is distinct, with the mouth and the anus.
 They are sexually dimorphic.
 They are devoid of the circulatory system and respiratory system.
 They are free-living or parasitic.
 Parasitic nematodes cause diseases in the host.
 Fertilization is internal and reproduction is sexual.
 Their cuticle moults periodically.
 The epidermis is synctical and contains dorsal or ventral nerve cords.
 The body-wall muscles are longitudinal.
 They possess amoeboid sperm cells.
  They consist of chemosensory organs called aphids situated on the
lips

Q NO 3 Explain loose smut of wheat disease cycle and management?

LOOSE SMUT OF WHEAT DISEASE CYCLE:
INTRODUCTION:
Wheat (TriticumaestivumL.) belongs to Poaceaefamily is an important food crop
of Pakistan and ranking in 8th positions in the world to produce wheat after
Europe, China, India, America, Russia, Canadan and Australia in 2016. It is
cultivated on 8.690 million hectares in the country, with the total production of
24.303 million ton (Federal Bureau of Statistics, 2016).This disease is very
common and widespread.
Mycelium of Loose Smut Disease:
Ustilagotriticiis an internal parasite. It has a dikaryoticmycelium. The hyphae
ramify the intercellular in spaces of the host tissue. They absorb nutrition from
the host cells by diffusion. The hyphae do not produce haustoria.
Spore Formation:
The mycelium grows keeping pace with the growth of the host plant. It is chiefly
confined to the stem (Fig. 22.14 C). At the time of flowering and when the
inflorescence is still enclosed by the boot leaf, the mycelial hyphae enter into the
ovaries of flowers
Within the ovary each hypha grows vigorously and branches repeatedly to form a
dense mass of hyphae . The latter destroy the host tissue in the ovaries and
surrounding floral parts. The cells of these hyphae are binucleate.
The hyphae undergo additional septationto form short binucleatecells. These cells
swell and round off to form binucleatesmut spores (Fig. 22.14 F). The smut spores
are called the brand spores. Some mycologists prefer to call them teliospores.
They are spherical to oval and measure 5.9 μ in diameter. They have a finely
echinulate thick spore wall which is olivaceousbrown but slightly lighter on one
side. The teliosporesare produced in enormous numbers

DEVELOPMENT OF DISEASE:
The pathogens overwinter as dormant mycelium in the scutellum of the cotyledon
of infected kernels. When planted, infected kernels begin to germinate, and the
mycelium resumes its activity and grows intercellularly through the tissues of the
young seedling until it reaches the growing point of the plant (Fig. 11-147). The
mycelium then follows closely the growing point of the plant, while the hyphae in
the tissues of the lower stem frequently disappear. When the plant forms the
head, the mycelium invades all the young spikelets, where it grows intracellularly
and destroys most of the tissues of the spike, except the rachis. By this time, most
infected plants are slightly taller than most healthy plants due to the stimulatory
action of the pathogen. The mycelium in the infected kernels is soon transformed
into teliospores, which are contained only by a delicate outer membrane.
Control Measures of Loose Smut Disease:
Since the mycelium of the parasite is lodged inside the grain, external application
of disinfectants is ineffective. Direct attack on the fungus living deep in the tissues
is very difficult. In the first instance most of the chemicals do not reach the seat of
trouble.
Some which do may injure the embryo as well. The dormant mycelium in the
grain is very resistant to heat. Hence in all methods of treatment the first step is
to make the dormant mycelium active. In the activated condition it is vulnerable.
It is killed by the application of moist heat.
Hot Water Treatment:
The wheat grains are at first soaked in water kept within a range of temperature
between 26°C-30°C. They are allowed to remain there for about 4-5 hours. In the
softened grains the dormant mycelium becomes active.
The temperature of water is then raised and kept constant at 54°C for about 10
minutes. At this temperature the activated mycelium is killed. This method
requires strict care and supervision. The temperature should be carefully
controlled.
At a range a little too low, it will fail to kill the mycelium and at a degree or so too
high it will kill the embryo. In this case the embryo is killed at 56°C. The margin of
error either way is thus very little. After the treatment the water is drained off .
Sun Heating:
This method is in vogue in the Punjab and U.P. Here the sun in the months of May
and June is very hot. The atmospheric temperature is very high. The suspected
grains are soaked in water in flat, shallow bottomed basins with water level about
two inches above the level of grain.
The basins are placed in the direct rays of the summer sun for about 4 to 6 hours,
say from 8 a.m. to 12 noon. During this period the dormant fungus mycelium
becomes active. The water is then drained off.
The softened grains are spread in thin layers on the brick floor in the midday sun
to dry. In the cooler regions the use of galvanisediron sheet to spread and dry the
grain in the sun has been recommended
Growing Resistant Varieties:
Sowing grains of varieties of wheat which are immune from or resistant to this
disease is the best method of controlling the disease. Some of the wheat resistant
varieties are Np 710, Np 120, and Pb90.
The other equally effective methods are:
 The wheat plants with infected ears, which emerge out of the boot leaves earlier
than the healthy ones, may be uprooted at once and burnt. This practice is called
rogueing.
The grains for sowing purposes should be thrashed from uninfected wheat ears .
Use of systemic fungicides:
The use of fungicides, which till recently was considered impraticableto control
the seed borne loose smut disease of wheat, has received much attention.
Chatrathet al. (1969) found that two systemic fungicides D735 (Vitavax) and F 461
(Plantavax) give quite encouraging results when applied as seed dressing
fungicides at the rate of 2.50 gm per Kg.
The use of Benomyl and Carboxinto control loose smut of wheat (U. nudavar.
tritici) has been recommended by many workers. Joshi et al. (1975) reported that
seed dressing with 0.25 per cent Benomylcan effectively control the disease.
Thomas and Chatrath(1975) found that a systemic fungicide
thiabendazoleemployed as a seed treatment at the rate of 0.1 to 0.2 per cent is
highly effective to control the disease without affecting germination.