Diseases of Field & Horticultural Crops & their Management-I

PATH 272 is an applied plant pathology course on major diseases of field and horticultural crops, focusing on symptoms, causal organisms, disease cycles, and practical management.

They study diseases crop by crop because each crop has its own important pathogens, symptom patterns, favorable conditions, and management measures that must be recognized accurately in the field.

The most important things are the symptom, causal organism, disease cycle or spread, favorable weather or field conditions, and the key management measures used under practical farming conditions.

Rice blast is important because it is one of the most destructive rice diseases, affecting leaves, nodes, and panicles and causing serious yield losses under favorable conditions.

Late blight is important because it spreads rapidly under cool, humid conditions and can destroy foliage, fruits, and tubers, making it a classic example of severe epidemic disease.

Integrated disease management means combining resistant varieties, clean seed or planting material, sanitation, crop rotation, field monitoring, cultural practices, and carefully timed chemical or biological measures.

They appear together because BSc Agriculture students need disease-recognition and management skills across both broad-acre crops and high-value horticultural crops.

They do this because repeated observation of real symptoms and specimens improves disease recognition, diagnosis, and field memory far better than theory alone.