Symptoms caused by plant

diseases
SYMPTOMS CAUSED BY FUNGI ON PLANTS
• Fungi cause local or general symptoms on their hosts and such
symptoms may occur separately or concurrently or may follow one
another.
• The most significant fungus characteristics used for identification are
spores and spore-bearing structures and, to some extent, the
characteristics of the fungus body (mycelium).
• These items are examined under a compound microscope directly
after removal from the specimen.
• Alternatively, the fungus may be isolated and grown on artificial
media and identified on the basis of spores produced on the media.
SYMPTOMS CAUSED BY FUNGI ON PLANTS
• In general, fungi cause local or general necrosis of plant tissues, and
they often cause reduced growth (stunting) of plant organs or entire
plants.
• A few fungi cause excessive growth of infected plants or plant parts.
The most common necrotic symptoms are as follows.
Leaf spot
• Localized lesions on host leaves consisting of dead and collapsed cells.
Blight
• General and extremely rapid browning and death of leaves, branches,
twigs, and floral organs
Canker
• Localized necrotic lesion on a stem or fleshy organ, often sunken, of a
plant
Dieback
• Extensive necrosis of twigs beginning at their tips and advancing
toward their bases
Root rot
• Disintegration or decay of part or all of the root system of a plant
Damping-off
• Rapid death and collapse of very young seedlings
Basal stem rot
• Disintegration of the lower part of the stem
Soft rots and dry rots
• Maceration and disintegration of fruits, roots, bulbs, tubers, and
fleshy leaves
Anthracnose
• Necrotic and sunken ulcer-like lesion on the stem, leaf, fruit, or flower
of the host plant caused mainly by a certain group of fungi
Scab
• Localized lesions on host fruit, leaves, tubers, etc., usually slightly
raised or sunken and cracked, giving a scabby appearance
Decline
• Progressive loss of vigor; plants growing poorly; leaves small, brittle,
yellowish, or red; some defoliation and dieback present
• Almost all of the aforementioned symptoms may also be associated
with pronounced stunting of the infected plants.
• In addition, certain other diseases, such as rusts, mildews, wilts, and
even those causing excessive growth of some plant organs, may cause
stunting of the plant as a whole.
• Symptoms associated with excessive enlargement or growth and
distortion of plant parts include the following.
Clubroot
• Enlarged roots appearing like spindles or clubs
Galls
• Enlarged portions of plant organs (stems, leaves, blossoms, roots)
Warts
• Wart-like protuberances on tubers and stems
Leaf curls
• Distortion, thickening, and curling of leaves
Wilt
• Generalized loss of turgidity and drooping of leaves or shoots
Rust
• Many small lesions on leaves or stems, usually of a rusty color
Smut
• Seed or a gall filled with the mycelium or black spores of the smut
fungi
Mildew
• Areas on leaves, stems, blossoms, and fruits, covered with whitish
mycelium and the fructifications of the fungus
• In many diseases, the fungal pathogen grows, or produces various
structures, on the surface of the host.
• These structures may include mycelium, sclerotia, sporophores,
fruiting bodies, and spores, and are called signs.
• Signs are distinct from symptoms, which refer only to the appearance
of the infected plants or plant tissues.
• Thus, in the mildews, for example, one sees mostly the signs
consisting of a whitish, downy or powdery growth of fungus mycelium
and spores on the plant leaves, fruit, or stem, whereas the symptoms
consist of chlorotic or necrotic lesions on leaves, fruit, and stem,
reduced growth of the plant, and so on.
Symptoms caused by Bacterial pathogens
• Plant pathogenic bacteria induce as many kinds of symptoms on the
plants they infect as do fungi.
• Cause leaf spots and blights, soft rots of fruits, roots, and storage
organs, wilts, overgrowths, scabs, and cankers.
• Species of Agrobacterium can cause only overgrowths or proliferation
of organs.
• Azorhizobium and Bradyrhizobium are gram-negative, soil-inhabiting
bacteria that induce the formation of nodules on the roots of legume
plants, but these bacteria are beneficial rather than pathogenic to the
plant because they fix nitrogen that is used by the plants.
Symptoms caused by Bacterial pathogens
Symptoms caused by Viruses
Some of the types of symptoms caused by
viruses on plants. (A) Mosaic or mottle on
cowpea leaf.
(B) Line pattern or mosaic on rose leaves. (C)
Leaf malformation (shoe string) on squash
leaves. (D) Pitting on stem
of grapevine.
Symptoms caused by Viruses
• Almost all viral diseases seem to cause some degree of dwarfing or
stunting of the entire plant and reduction in total yield.
• Viruses usually shorten the length of life of virus-infected plants,
although they rarely kill plants on infection.
• These effects may be severe and striking in appearance or they may
be very slight and easily overlooked.
• The most obvious symptoms of virus-infected plants are usually those
appearing on the leaves, but some viruses may cause striking
symptoms on the stem, fruit, and roots while they may or may not
cause any symptom development on the leaves
Symptoms caused by viruses
• In many plants inoculated artificially with certain viruses, the virus
causes the formation of small, chlorotic or necrotic lesions only at the
points of entry (local infections), and the symptoms are called local
lesions.
• However, many viruses infect certain hosts without causing
development of visible symptoms on them.
• Such viruses are usually called latent viruses, and the hosts are called
symptomless carriers.
Symptoms caused by viruses
• In other cases, however, plants that usually develop symptoms on
infection with a certain virus may remain temporarily symptomless
under certain environmental conditions (e.g., high or low
temperature), and such symptoms are called masked.
• The most common types of plant symptoms produced by systemic
virus infections are mosaics and ring spots.
• Mosaics are characterized by light-green, yellow, or white areas
intermingled with the normal green of the leaves or fruit or of
lighter–colored areas intermingled with areas of the normal color of
flowers or fruit.
• Large number of other, less common virus symptoms
• include stunt (e.g., tomato bushy stunt),
• dwarf (barley yellow dwarf),
• leaf roll (potato leafroll),
• yellows (beet yellows),
• Streak (tobacco streak),
• pox (plum pox),
• enation (pea enation mosaic),
• tumors (wound tumor),
• pitting of stem (apple stem pitting),
• pitting of fruit (pear stony pit),
• and flattening and distortion of stem (apple flat limb).
Symptoms caused by Nematodes
• Nematode infections of plants result in the appearance of symptoms
on roots as well as on the aboveground parts of plants. Root
symptoms may appear as root lesions, root knots or
• root galls, excessive root branching, injured
• root tips, and,
• When nematode infections are accompanied by plant pathogenic or
saprophytic bacteria and fungi, as root rots.
• The root symptoms are usually accompanied by noncharacteristic
symptoms in the aboveground parts of plants.
Symptoms caused by nematodes
• Symptoms appearing primarily as reduced growth, symptoms of
nutrient deficiencies such as yellowing of foliage, excessive wilting in
hot or dry weather, reduced yields, and poor quality of products.
• Certain species of nematodes invade the aboveground portions of
plants rather than the roots, and on these they cause galls, necrotic
lesions and rots, twisting or distortion of leaves and stems, and
abnormal development of the floral parts.
• Certain nematodes attack cereals or grasses and form galls full of
nematodes in place of seed.
Plant Diseases caused by Nematodes
Disease caused by Parasitic Plants
ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS
THAT
CAUSE PLANT DISEASES
Abiotic diseases
• Plants grow best within certain ranges of the various abiotic factors that make up
their environment.
• Such factors include temperature, soil moisture, soil nutrients, light, air and soil
pollutants, air humidity, soil structure, and pH.
• The common characteristic of abiotic, i.e., noninfectious diseases of plants, is that
they are caused by the lack or excess of something that supports life.
• Noninfectious diseases occur in the absence of pathogens and cannot, therefore,
be transmitted from diseased to healthy plants. Noninfectious diseases may
affect plants in all stages of their lives (e.g., seed, seedling, mature plant, or fruit),
and they may cause damage in the field, in storage, or at the market.
Diagnosis
• The diagnosis of noninfectious diseases is sometimes made easy by
the presence of characteristic symptoms known to be caused by the
lack or excess of a particular factor on the plant.
• At other times, diagnosis can be arrived at by carefully examining and
analyzing several factors:
• The weather conditions prevailing before and during the appearance of the
disease; changes in the atmospheric and soil contaminants
• Recent at or near the area where the plants are growing;
• The cultural practices, or possible accidents in the course of these practices,
preceding the appearance of the disease.
Abiotic Diseases
• Often, however, the symptoms of several noninfectious diseases are too
indistinct and closely resemble those caused by several viruses, mollicutes,
and many root pathogens.
• The diagnosis of such noninfectious diseases then becomes a great deal
more complicated.
• One must obtain proof of absence from the plant of any of the pathogens
that could cause the disease, and one must reproduce the disease on
healthy plants after subjecting them to conditions similar to those thought
of as the cause of the disease.
• To distinguish further among environmental factors causing similar
symptoms, the investigator must cure the diseased plants, if possible, by
growing them under conditions in which the degree or the amount of the
suspected environmental factor involved has been adjusted to normal.
TEMPERATURE EFFECTS
• Plants normally grow at a temperature range from 1 to 40°C, with
most kinds of plants growing best between 15 and 30°C.
• Perennial plants and dormant organs (e.g., seeds and corms) of
annual plants may survive temperatures considerably below or above
the normal temperature range of 1 to 40°C.
• The young, growing tissues of most plants, however, and the entire
growth of many annual plants are usually quite sensitive to
temperatures near or beyond the extremes of this range.
High Temperature Effects
• The minimum and maximum temperatures at which plants can still
produce normal growth vary greatly with the plant species and with
the stage of growth the plant is in during the low or high
temperatures.
• A plant may also differ in its ability to withstand extremes in
temperature at different stages of its growth.
• Thus, older, hardened plants are more resistant to low temperatures
than young seedlings.
High Temperature effect
• Plants are generally injured faster and to a greater extent when
temperatures become higher than the maximum for growth than
when they are lower than the minimum.
• High temperatures are usually responsible for sunscald injuries.
• On hot, sunny days the temperature of the fruit tissues beneath the
surface facing the sun may be much higher than that of those on the
shaded side and of the surrounding air. This results in discoloration, a
water-soaked appearance, blistering, and desiccation of the tissues
beneath the skin, which leads to sunken areas on the fruit surface
Low Temperature Effect
• Far greater damage to crops is caused by low than by high
temperatures.
• They may also cause excessive sweetening and, on frying, undesirable
caramelization of potatoes due to the hydrolysis of starch to sugars at
the low temperatures.
• Such injuries include the damage
• Damages caused by late frosts to young leaves and meristematic tips.
• The frost killing of buds and the killing of flowers, young fruit, and,
sometimes, succulent twigs of most trees.
Low Temperature Effect
• Low winter temperatures may kill the young roots of trees and may
also cause bark splitting and canker development on trunks and large
branches, especially on the sun-exposed side, of several kinds of fruit
trees.
• Fleshy tissues, such as tomato fruit, canola pods, and potato tubers,
may be injured at subfreezing temperatures.
• Early injury affects only the main vascular tissues and appears as a
ring-like necrosis; injury of the finer vascular elements that are
interspersed in the tuber gives the appearance of net-like necrosis.
How temperature effect plants
• High temperatures apparently inactivate certain enzyme systems and
accelerate others, thus leading to abnormal biochemical reactions
and cell death.
• High temperature also causes coagulation and denaturation of
proteins, disruption of cytoplasmic membranes, suffocation, and
possibly release of toxic products into the cell.
• Low temperatures cause ice formation between or within the cells.
• When the intercellular water becomes ice, more vapor (water) moves
out of the cells and into the intercellular spaces, where it also
becomes ice.
MOISTURE EFFECTS
• Moisture disturbances in the soil are probably responsible for more
plants growing poorly and being unproductive annually, over large
areas, than any other single environmental factor.
• The subnormal amounts of water available to plants in these areas
may result in reduced growth, a diseased appearance, or even death
of the plants.
• Plants suffering from lack of sufficient soil moisture usually remain
stunted, are pale green to light yellow, have few, small and drooping
leaves, flower and fruit sparingly, and, if the drought continues, wilt
and die.
Low moisture effect
• Although annual plants are considerably more susceptible to short
periods of insufficient moisture, even perennial plants and trees are
damaged by prolonged periods of drought and produce less growth,
small, scorched leaves and short twigs, dieback, defoliation, and
finally wilting and death.
• Plants weakened by drought are also more susceptible to certain
pathogens and insects.
• Conditions of low relative humidity are particularly common and
injurious to houseplants during the winter.
High Moisture Effect
• Excessive soil moisture occurs much less often than drought where
plants are grown.
• Poor drainage or flooding of planted fields, gardens, or potted plants
may result in more serious and quicker damage, or death, to plants
than that from lack of moisture.
• Poor drainage results in plants that lack vigor, wilt frequently, and
have leaves that are pale green or yellowish green.
• Flooding during the growth season may cause permanent wilting and
death of succulent annuals within 2 to 3 days.
High Moisture Effect
• As a result of excessive soil moisture caused by flooding or by poor
drainage, the fibrous roots of plants decay, probably because of the
reduced supply of oxygen to the roots.
• Oxygen deprivation causes stress, asphyxiation, and collapse of many root
cells.
• Wet, anaerobic conditions favor the growth of anaerobic microorganisms
that, during their life processes, form substances, such as nitrites, that are
toxic to plants.
• Thus, the wilting of the plants, which soon follows flooding, is probably the
result of lack of water in the aboveground parts of plants caused by the
death of the roots, although it appears that translocated toxic substances
may also be involved.
High Moisture Effect
• Common symptom of houseplants, and sometimes of outdoor plants,
that is caused by excessive moisture is the so-called edema [or
oedema (swelling).
• Edema (Fig. 10-6D) appears as numerous small bumps on the lower
side of leaves or on stems.
• The “bumps” are small masses of cells that divide, expand, and break
out of the normal leaf surface and at first form greenish- white
swellings or galls.
INADEQUATE OXYGEN
• Low oxygen conditions in nature are generally associated with high
soil moisture or high temperatures.
• Lack of oxygen may cause the desiccation of roots of different kinds of
plants in waterlogged soils, as was mentioned in the section on
moisture effects.
• A combination of high soil moisture and high soil or air temperature
causes root collapse in plants.
• Low oxygen levels may also occur in the centers of fleshy fruits or
vegetables in the field, especially during periods of rapid respiration
at high temperatures, or in storage of these products in fairly bulky
piles.
INADEQUATE OXYGEN
• The best known such case is the development of the so-called
blackheart of potato, in which fairly high temperatures stimulate
respiration and abnormal enzymatic reactions in the potato tuber.
• Enzymatic reactions activated by the high temperature and
suboxidation go on before, during, and after the death of the cells.
• These reactions abnormally oxidize normal plant constituents into
dark melanin pigments.
• The pigments spread into the surrounding tuber tissues and finally
make them appear black.
LIGHT
• Lack of sufficient light retards chlorophyll formation and promotes
slender growth with long internodes, thus leading to pale green
leaves, spindly growth, and premature drop of leaves and flowers.
• This condition is known as etiolation.
• Etiolated plants are usually thin and tall and are susceptible to
lodging.
• Excess light is rather rare in nature and seldom injures plants.
• Excessive light, however, seems to cause sunscald of pods of beans
grown at high altitudes where, due to the absence of dust, more light
of short wavelengths reaches the earth.
AIR POLLUTION
• Air pollution damage to plants, especially around certain types of factories,
has been recognized for about a century.
• Almost all air pollutants causing plant injury are gases, but some
particulate matter or dusts may also affect vegetation.
• Some gas contaminants, such as ethylene, ammonia, and chlorine, exert
their injurious effects over limited areas.
• High concentrations of or long exposure to these chemicals cause visible
and sometimes characteristic symptoms (such as necrosis) on the affected
plants.
• Prolonged exposure to air pollutants seems to weaken plants and to
predispose them to attack by insects, by some pathogens, and by other
environmental factors such as low winter temperatures.
Air Pollution
• The concentration at which each pollutant causes injury to a plant
varies with the plant and even with the age of the plant or the plant
part.
• As the duration that the plant is exposed to the pollutant is
increased, damage can be caused by increasingly smaller
concentrations of the pollutant until a minimum dose-injury
threshold is reached.
• Ozone injures the leaves of plants exposed for even a few hours at
concentrations of 0.1 to 0.3 ppm.
Air Pollution
• Ozone is taken into leaves through stomata and injures primarily
palisade but also other cells by disrupting the cell membrane.
• Affected cells near stomata collapse and die, and white (bleached)
necrotic flecks appear, first on the upper side and later on either leaf
surface.
• Sulfur dioxide is absorbed through the leaf stomata.
• After absorption by the leaf, sulfur dioxide reacts with water and
forms phytotoxic sulfite ions.
• Peroxyacyl nitrates are also taken into leaves through stomata and
cause injury at concentrations as low as 0.01 to 0.02 ppm.
• Young leaves and tissues are more sensitive to PAN, and periodic
exposures of leaves to PAN often cause “banding” and in some plants
even margin “pinching” of leaves because of discoloration and death
of the most sensitive affected cells, respectively.
• Acid rain is the result of human activities, primarily the combustion of
fossil fuels (oil, coal, and natural gas) and the smelting of sulfide ores.
• Acid rain greatly increasing the solubility of all kinds of molecules.
• In general, although some evidence exists that acid rain causes
variable amounts of damage to at least some plants.
NUTRITIONAL DEFICIENCIES IN PLANTS
• Plants require several mineral elements for normal growth. Some
elements, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium,
magnesium, and sulfur, needed in relatively large amounts, are
called major elements, whereas others, such as iron, boron,
manganese, zinc, copper, molybdenum, and chlorine, needed in very
small amounts, are called trace or minor elements or micronutrients.
• Both major and trace elements are essential to the plant.
• When they are present in the plant in amounts smaller than the
minimum levels required for normal plant growth, the plant becomes
diseased and exhibits various external and internal symptoms.
Nutrient Deficiencies
• Nitrogen (N)
• Present in most substances of cells Plants grow poorly and are light green in color.
Lower leaves turn yellow or light brown and stems are short and slender.
• Phosphorus (P)
• Present in DNA, RNA, Plants grow poorly and leaves are bluish green with purple
tints. Lower leaves sometimes phospholipids (membranes), turn light bronze with
purple or brown spots. Shoots are short and thin, upright, ADP, ATP, etc. and spindly.
• Potassium (K)
• Acts as a catalyst of many reactions. Plants have thin shoots, which in severe cases
show dieback. Older leaves show reactions chlorosis with browning of tips,
scorching of margins, and many brown spots usually near the margins. Fleshy tissues
show end necrosis.
Nutrient Deficiencies
• Iron (Fe)
• Iron is a cofactor for redox enzymes such as cytochrome (Cyt) oxidase, peroxidase, catalase, iron-
sulfur proteins, and ferredoxinIs a catalyst of chlorophyll. Young leaves become severely
chlorotic, but main veins remain characteristically synthesis. green. Sometimes brown spots
develop. Part of or entire leaves may dry. Leaves Part of many enzymes may be shed.
• Magnesium (Mg)
• Present in chlorophyll. First older, then younger leaves become mottled and chlorotic, then
reddish. Sometimes of many enzymes necrotic spots appear. Tips and margins of leaves may
turn upward and leaves appear cupped. Leaves may drop off.
• Boron (B)
• Affects Bases of young leaves of terminal buds become light green and finally break down.
translocation of sugars and Stems and leaves become distorted. Plants are stunted.
Nutrient Deficiencies
• Calcium (Ca)
• Regulates the permeability of cell membranes. Young leaves become distorted,
with tips hooked back and margins curled. Leaves membranes. Causes blossom end
rot of many fruits. Increases fruit (e.g., apple) decay in storage. May be responsible
for tip burns in mature detached lettuce heads at high temperatures
• Sulfur (S)
• Present in some amino acids. Young leaves are pale green or light yellow without
any spots. Symptoms resemble coenzymes those of nitrogen deficiency
• Zinc (Zn)
• Zinc is a crucial part of many enzymes in plants. It acts as a functional, structural,
or regulatory cofactor for various enzymes. Leaves show interveinal chlorosis.
Leaves are few and small, internodes are short and shoots form oxidation of sugars
rosettes, and fruit production is low. Leaves are shed progressively from base to tip.
It causes little leaf of apple, stone fruits, and grape, sickle leaf of cacao, white tip of
corn, etc.
Nutrient Deficiencies
• Manganese (Mn)
• Is part of many enzymes. Leaves become chlorotic but smallest veins remain green
and produce a checked respiration, photosynthesis. Necrotic spots may appear
scattered on leaf. Severely affected leaves turn nitrogen utilization brown and wither.
• Molybdenum (Mo)
• Is essential component of nitrate reductase enzyme. Melons, and probably other
plants, exhibit severe yellowing and stunting and fail to set fruit.
• Copper (Cu)
• Is part of many oxidative enzymes. Tips of young leaves of cereals wither and their
margins become chlorotic. Leaves may fail to unroll and tend to appear wilted.
Heading is reduced and heads are dwarfed and distorted and yield is reduced. Citrus,
pome, and stone fruits show dieback of twigs in the summer, burning of leaf
margins, chlorosis, rosetting, etc. Vegetable crops fail to grow.
HERBICIDE INJURY
• Some of the most frequent plant disorders seem to be the result of
the extensive use of herbicides (weed killers).
• Herbicides are either specific against broad-leaved weeds and are
applied in corn and other small grain fields and on lawns or they are
specific against grasses and some broad-leaved weeds and are
applied in pastures, orchards, and in vegetable and truck crop fields.
• In addition, some herbicides are general weed or shrub killers.
• When wrongly applied, affected plants show various degrees of
distortion or yellowing of leaves, browning, drying and shedding of
leaves, stunting, and even death of the plant.
HAIL INJURY, LIGHTNING,
• Hail injury
• Depending on the stage of development of the plant, the size of the hail, and
duration of the hail storm, damage to crops from hail may be small, intermediate, or
complete; in the latter case, all plants are destroyed by the hail.

• Lightening
• When lightning strikes a tree, the trunk or main branches may crack, tip over, or fall.
Fields, however, may also be hit by
• lightning either directly, and or indirectly by hitting a taller object, such as a tree or
pole, and then distributed to the field.
• In either case, plants in the field may receive an electric shock but survive it, but
more frequently many plants in the path or immediate vicinity of the lightning are
killed in characteristic configurations and or in a circular area.
Why abiotic disease difficult to diagnose
• Diagnosis of an abiotic disease is often every bit as difficult as the
diagnosis of a biotic disease.
• Combinations of single or multiple abiotic and biotic diseases occur
on the same plant or in an entire area, however, the diagnosis of the
diseases and the determination of the relative importance of each
become extremely difficult and often impossible.
• When plants are adversely affected by an environmental factor, such
as low moisture, nutrient deficiency, air pollution, or freezing, they
are generally and concurrently weakened and predisposed to
infection by one or more weakly parasitic pathogens.
Control

• Noninfectious plant diseases can be controlled by:

• Ensuring that plants are not exposed to the extreme environmental

conditions responsible for such diseases
• By supplying the plants with protection
• Substances that would bring these conditions to levels favorable for plant
growth.