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Diseases of plants

Plant diseases are diseases in plants caused by pathogens (infectious organisms) and environmental conditions (physiological factors). Organisms that cause infectious disease include fungi, oomycetes, bacteria, viruses, viroids, virus like organisms, phytoplasmas, protozoa, nematodes and parasitic plants. Not included are ectoparasites like insects, mites, vertebrates, or other pests that affect plant health by eating plant tissues and causing injury that may admit plant pathogens. The study of plant disease is called plant pathology.

The oomycetes are fungus like organisms among the Stramenopiles. They include some of the most destructive plant pathogens, such as the causal agents of potato late blight and sudden oak death. Despite not being closely related to the fungi, the oomycetes have developed similar infection strategies, using effector proteins to turn off a plant's defenses.

Some slime molds in Phytomyxea cause important diseases, including clubroot in cabbage and its relatives and powdery scab in potatoes. These are caused by species of Plasmodiophora and Spongospora, respectively.

Phytoplasma and Spiroplasma are obligate intracellular parasites, bacteria that lack cell walls and, like the mycoplasmas, which are human pathogens, they belong to the class Mollicutes. Their cells are extremely small, 1 to 2 micrometres across. They tend to have small genomes (roughly between 0.5 and 2 Mb). They are normally transmitted by leafhoppers (cicadellids) and psyllids, both sap sucking insect vectors. These inject the bacteria into the plant's phloem, where it reproduces.

Many plant viruses cause only a loss of crop yield. Therefore, it is not economically viable to try to control them, except when they infect perennial species, such as fruit trees. Most plant viruses have small, single stranded RNA genomes. Some also have double stranded RNA or single or double stranded DNA. These may encode only three or four proteins: a replicase, a coat protein, a movement protein to facilitate cell to cell movement through plasmodesmata, and sometimes a protein that allows transmission by a vector. Plant viruses are generally transmitted by a vector, but mechanical and seed transmission also occur. Vectors are often insects such as aphids; others are fungi, nematodes, and protozoa. In many cases, the insect and virus are specific for virus transmission such as the beet leafhopper that transmits the curly top virus causing disease in several crop plants.

Some nematodes parasitize plant roots. They are a problem in tropical and subtropical regions. Potato cyst nematodes (Globodera pallida and G. rostochiensis) are widely distributed in Europe and the Americas, causing $300 million worth of damage in Europe annually. Root knot nematodes have quite a large host range, they parasitize plant root systems and thus directly affect the uptake of water and nutrients needed for normal plant growth and reproduction, whereas cyst nematodes tend to be able to infect only a few species. Nematodes are able to cause radical changes in root cells in order to facilitate their lifestyle.

A few plant diseases are caused by protozoa such as Phytomonas, a kinetoplastid. They are transmitted as durable zoospores that may be able to survive in a resting state in the soil for many years. Further, they can transmit plant viruses. When the motile zoospores come into contact with a root hair they produce a plasmodium which invades the roots.

Some abiotic disorders can be confused with pathogen induced disorders. Abiotic causes include natural processes such as drought, frost, snow and hail; flooding and poor drainage; nutrient deficiency; deposition of mineral salts such as sodium chloride and gypsum; windburn and breakage by storms; and wildfires.

Plants are subject to disease epidemics.

The introduction of harmful nonnative organisms into a country van be reduced by controlling human traffic (e. g., the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service). Global trade provides unprecedented opportunities for the introduction of plant pests. In the United States, even to get a better estimate of the number of such introductions would require a substantial increase in inspections. In Australia a similar shortcoming of understanding has a different origin: Port inspections are not very useful because inspectors know too little about taxonomy. There are often pests that the Australian Government has prioritised as harmful to be kept out of the country, but which have near taxonomic relatives that confuse the issue. X ray and electron beam/E beam irradiation of food has been trialed as a quarantine treatment for fruit commodities originating from Hawaii. The US FDA (Food and Drug Administration), USDA APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service), producers, and consumers were all accepting of the results more thorough pest eradication and lesser taste degradation than heat treatment. The International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) anticipates that molecular diagnostics for inspections will continue to improve.

Many natural and synthetic compounds can be employed to combat plant diseases. This method works by directly eliminating disease causing organisms or curbing their spread; however, it has been shown to have too broad an effect, typically, to be good for the local ecosystem. From an economic standpoint, all but the simplest natural additives may disqualify a product from "organic" status, potentially reducing the value of the yield.

Crop rotation is a traditional and sometimes effective means of preventing pests and diseases from becoming well established, alongside other benefits. Other biological methods include inoculation. Protection against infection by Agrobacterium tumefaciens, which causes gall diseases in many plants, can be provided by dipping cuttings in suspensions of Agrobacterium radiobacter before inserting them in the ground to take root.