Biological Control of Rice Diseases

This book covers the microorganisms and cultural practices developed as the non-chemical alternatives used to manage devastating rice diseases in Asia. Methodologies and merits discussed apply to disease control in all other major crops.

There is suf?cient need to document all the available data on biological control of rice diseases in a small volume. Part of this need rests on the global importance of rice to human life. In the ?rst chapter, I have tried to show that rice is indeed life for most people in Asia and shortages in production and availability can lead to a food crisis. While rice is cultivated in most continents, biological disease management attains special relevance to rice farmers of Africa, Asia, and also perhaps, Latin America. These farmers are resource-poor and might not be able to afford the cost of expensive chemical treatments to control devastating rice pathogens such as Magnaporthe oryzae (blast), Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (bacterial leaf blight), Rhizoctonia solani (sheath blight) and the virus, rice tungro disease. In an earlier volume that I developed under the title, Biological Control of Crop Diseases (Dekker/CRC Publishers, 2002), I included transgenic crops generated for the management of plant pathogens as biological control under the umbrella of a broad de?nition. Dr Jim Cook who wrote the Foreword for the volume lauded the inclusion of transgenic crops and induced systemic resistance (ISR) as a positive trend toward acceptance of host plant resistance as part of biocontrol. I continue to subscribe to this view.

The first book to document all the biological control practices Describes environment-friendly, affordable microbial-based disease control measures mostly developed in India, Philippines and Asia

Texte du rabat

This book on biological control of rice diseases deals with microorganisms and cultural practices as the non-chemical alternatives developed and used to manage devastating rice diseases such as blast, sheath blight, bacterial blight and rice tungro disease in Asia. The term, biological control has been used also to include transgenic rices which carry rice genes or others whose transient expression cause resistance to pathogens and reduce the use of chemicals. This is the first book that has been brought out to document the biological control research in rice and the application of biocontrol agents to rice. It has been developed to provide detailed accounts on the subject of biological control practised in rice over the last 30 years. However, the methodologies and merits apply to disease control in all other major crops and therefore, should be of significant interest to researchers and students of plant pathology, microbiology and crop science.

Contenu
Rice and Its Importance to Human Life.- Major Diseases of Rice.- An Overview of Progress in Biological Control.- Biological Control of Rice Blast.- Biological Control of Bacterial Blight of Rice.- Biological Control of Sheath Blight (ShB) of Rice.- Biological Control of Sheath-Rot and Other Fungal Diseases.- Biological Control of Rice Tungro Disease (RTD).