eChapter Name: Detection and Management of Plant Diseases for Regenerative Agriculture
9789358879018
eBook Name: REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE
by Kartik Sawant, Meenakshi Rana, Seweta Srivastava, Devendra Kumar
Introduction
In the last two decades, sustainable agriculture has grown to become one of the most pressing issues in agriculture. Although there are numerous definitions of sustainable agriculture, most agree on three fundamental overlapping components: Ecological, economic, and social sustainability (Kaur 2013; Pilgeram 2013). Meanwhile, the prevalence of plant diseases is a major impediment to sustainable agricultural production systems worldwide, particularly in the tropics and subtropics. Farmers frequently apply agrochemicals (i.e., pesticides, insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, etc.) over their recommended dose to manage plant diseases, raising serious concerns about food safety, soil, environmental quality, and pesticide resistance (Dordas 2008; Kaur 2013).
Disease detection on plants is critical for sustainable agriculture, and manually monitoring plant diseases is difficult. It usually requires a significant amount of work, knowledge of plant diseases, and extended processing time. Early detection is the base for efficient plant disease prevention and control, and it is critical in agricultural production management and decision-making. Plant disease identification has become increasingly important in recent years (Li et al., 2021). Diseased plants usually have visible marks or lesions on their leaves, stems, flowers, or fruits. In general, each disease or pest condition has a distinct visible pattern that can be used to identify abnormalities. Typically, the leaves of plants are the primary source for identifying plant diseases, and most disease symptoms may first appear on the leaves (Ebrahimi et al., 2017). Rapid advances in biotechnology have resulted in the development of various molecular diagnostic tools over the last decade. These tools, which are based on the properties of nucleic acids (DNA or RNA) or proteins of the target agents, have improved the efficacy, accuracy, and speed of detecting and identifying disease-causing agents, as well as the characterization of a wide range of pathogens and pests. Various techniques are used in biotechnology for disease diagnosis and management, but molecular markers are used in particular for the detection, identification, quantification, and characterization of plant pathogens that cause diseases in plants (Kumar et al., 2015).