Plant Pest and Disease Management

Plant diseases have caused severe losses to humans in several ways. Starvation and uprooting of families resulted from the Irish famine caused by potato late blight. The goal of plant disease management is to reduce the economic and aesthetic damage caused by plant diseases. Traditionally, this has been called plant disease control, but current social and environmental values deem “control” as being absolute and the term too rigid. More multifaceted approaches to disease management, and integrated disease management, have resulted from this shift in attitude. Further, disease management procedures are frequently determined by disease forecasting or disease modeling rather than on either a calendar or prescription basis. Disease management might be viewed as proactive whereas disease control is reactive, although it is often difficult to distinguish between the two concepts, especially in the application of specific measures. This book is mainly directed towards postgraduate students and professionals in the field of research and implementation of integrated pest and disease management programmes. This book is timely and appropriate for the plant protectionists. The book is an asset for the policy makers, administrators, teachers, research workers and students who may be referring the literature time to time.