Plant Breeding For Disease Resistance
Plant disease resistance protects plants from pathogens in two ways: by pre-formed structures and chemicals, and by infection-induced responses of the immune system. Relative to a susceptible plant, disease resistance is the reduction of pathogen growth on or in the plant (and hence a reduction of disease), while the term disease tolerance describes plants that exhibit little disease damage despite substantial pathogen levels. Disease outcome is determined by the three-way interaction of the pathogen, the plant and the environmental conditions (an interaction known as the disease triangle). Defense-activating compounds can move cell-to-cell and systematically through the plant's vascular system. However, plants do not have circulating immune cells, so most cell types exhibit a broad suite of antimicrobial defenses. Although obvious ''qualitative'' differences in disease resistance can be observed when multiple specimens are compared (allowing classification as “resistant” or ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chestnut Blight
The pathogenic fungus ''Cryphonectria parasitica'' (formerly ''Endothia parasitica'') is a member of the Ascomycota (sac fungi). This necrotrophic fungus is native to East Asia and South East Asia and was introduced into Europe and North America in the early 1900s. The fungus spread rapidly and caused significant tree loss in both regions. Overview ''Cryphonectria parasitica'' is a parasitic fungus of chestnut trees. This disease came to be known as chestnut blight. Naturally found in South East Asia, accidental introductions led to invasive populations of ''C. parasitica'' in North America and Europe. The fungal disease has had a devastating economic and social impact on communities in the eastern United States. In the first half of the 20th century it killed an estimated four billion trees; or, by another count, 3.5 billion trees through 2013. Less severe impacts have occurred in Europe due to widespread CHV1-induced ''hypovirulence''. CHV1 is one of at least two viral pathoge ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Wheat Yellow Rust
Wheat yellow rust (''Puccinia striiformis'' f.sp. ''tritici''), also known as wheat stripe rust, is one of the three major wheat rust diseases, along with stem rust of wheat (''Puccinia graminis'' f.sp. tritici) and leaf rust (''Puccinia triticina'' f.sp. tritici). History As R.P. Singh, J. Huerta-Espino, and A.P. Roelfs say in their 2002 comprehensive review of literature on the wheat rusts for UN FAO: Although Gadd first described stripe rust of wheat in 1777, it was not until 1896 that Eriksson and Henning (1896) showed that stripe rust resulted from a separate pathogen, which they named ''P. glumarum''. In 1953, Hylander et al. (1953) revived the name ''P. striiformis''. A stripe rust outbreak in northwest Syria contributed to the beginning of the Syrian Civil War by increasing food prices. Life cycle Other cereal rust fungi have macrocyclic, heteroecious life cycles, involving five spore stages and two phylogenetically unrelated hosts. ''P. striiformis'' was thou ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Polyphenol
Polyphenols () are a large family of naturally occurring organic compounds characterized by multiples of phenol units. They are abundant in plants and structurally diverse. Polyphenols include flavonoids, tannic acid, and ellagitannin, some of which have been used historically as dyes and for tanning garments. Etymology The name derives from the Ancient Greek word (''polus'', meaning "many, much") and the word phenol which refers to a chemical structure formed by attaching to an aromatic benzenoid (phenyl) ring to a hydroxyl (-OH) group as is found in alcohols (hence the ''-ol'' suffix). The term polyphenol has been in use at least since 1894. Definition The term polyphenol is not well-defined, but is generally agreed that they are natural products "having a polyphenol structure (i.e., several hydroxyl groups on aromatic rings)" including four principal classes: "phenolic acids, flavonoids, stilbenes, and lignans". *Flavonoids include flavones, flavonols, flavanols, f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chemical
A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., without breaking chemical bonds. Chemical substances can be simple substances (substances consisting of a single chemical element), chemical compounds, or alloys. Chemical substances are often called 'pure' to set them apart from mixtures. A common example of a chemical substance is pure water; it has the same properties and the same ratio of hydrogen to oxygen whether it is isolated from a river or made in a laboratory. Other chemical substances commonly encountered in pure form are diamond (carbon), gold, table salt (sodium chloride) and refined sugar (sucrose). However, in practice, no substance is entirely pure, and chemical purity is specified according to the intended use of the chemical. Chemical substances exist as solids, liquids, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Antimicrobial
An antimicrobial is an agent that kills microorganisms or stops their growth. Antimicrobial medicines can be grouped according to the microorganisms they act primarily against. For example, antibiotics are used against bacteria, and antifungals are used against fungi. They can also be classified according to their function. Agents that kill microbes are microbicides, while those that merely inhibit their growth are called bacteriostatic agents. The use of antimicrobial medicines to treat infection is known as antimicrobial chemotherapy, while the use of antimicrobial medicines to prevent infection is known as antimicrobial prophylaxis. The main classes of antimicrobial agents are disinfectants (non-selective agents, such as bleach), which kill a wide range of microbes on non-living surfaces to prevent the spread of illness, antiseptics (which are applied to living tissue and help reduce infection during surgery), and antibiotics (which destroy microorganisms within the body). The ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cell Wall
A cell wall is a structural layer surrounding some types of cells, just outside the cell membrane. It can be tough, flexible, and sometimes rigid. It provides the cell with both structural support and protection, and also acts as a filtering mechanism. Cell walls are absent in many eukaryotes, including animals, but are present in some other ones like fungi, algae and plants, and in most prokaryotes (except mollicute bacteria). A major function is to act as pressure vessels, preventing over-expansion of the cell when water enters. The composition of cell walls varies between taxonomic group and species and may depend on cell type and developmental stage. The primary cell wall of land plants is composed of the polysaccharides cellulose, hemicelluloses and pectin. Often, other polymers such as lignin, suberin or cutin are anchored to or embedded in plant cell walls. Algae possess cell walls made of glycoproteins and polysaccharides such as carrageenan and agar that are absent ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Plant Cuticle
A plant cuticle is a protecting film covering the outermost skin layer (epidermis) of leaves, young shoots and other aerial plant organs (aerial here meaning all plant parts not embedded in soil or other substrate) that have no ''periderm''. The film consists of lipid and hydrocarbon polymers impregnated with wax, and is synthesized exclusively by the epidermal cells. Kolattukudy, PE (1996) Biosynthetic pathways of cutin and waxes, and their sensitivity to environmental stresses. In: Plant Cuticles. Ed. by G. Kerstiens, BIOS Scientific publishers Ltd., Oxford, pp 83-108 Description The plant cuticle is a layer of lipid polymers impregnated with waxes that is present on the outer surfaces of the primary organs of all vascular land plants. It is also present in the sporophyte generation of hornworts, and in both sporophyte and gametophyte generations of mosses The plant cuticle forms a coherent outer covering of the plant that can be isolated intact by treating plant tissue with ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Plant Cell Showing Primary And Secondary Wall By CarolineDahl
Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclude the fungi and some algae, as well as the prokaryotes (the archaea and bacteria). By one definition, plants form the clade Viridiplantae (Latin name for "green plants") which is sister of the Glaucophyta, and consists of the green algae and Embryophyta (land plants). The latter includes the flowering plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns and their allies, hornworts, liverworts, and mosses. Most plants are multicellular organisms. Green plants obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts that are derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria. Their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a and b, which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic or mycotrophic and have lost the ability ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pesticide
Pesticides are substances that are meant to control pests. This includes herbicide, insecticide, nematicide, molluscicide, piscicide, avicide, rodenticide, bactericide, insect repellent, animal repellent, microbicide, fungicide, and lampricide. The most common of these are herbicides which account for approximately 80% of all pesticide use. Most pesticides are intended to serve as plant protection products (also known as crop protection products), which in general, protect plants from weeds, fungi, or insects. As an example, the fungus ''Alternaria solani'' is used to combat the aquatic weed ''Salvinia''. In general, a pesticide is a chemical (such as carbamate) or biological agent (such as a virus, bacterium, or fungus) that deters, incapacitates, kills, or otherwise discourages pests. Target pests can include insects, plant pathogens, weeds, molluscs, birds, mammals, fish, nematodes (roundworms), and microbes that destroy property, cause nuisance, or spread disease, or a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Crop Rotation
Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of different types of crops in the same area across a sequence of growing seasons. It reduces reliance on one set of nutrients, pest and weed pressure, and the probability of developing resistant pests and weeds. Growing the same crop in the same place for many years in a row, known as monocropping, gradually depletes the soil of certain nutrients and selects for a highly competitive pest and weed community. Without balancing nutrient use and diversifying pest and weed communities, the productivity of monocultures is highly dependent on external inputs. Conversely, a well-designed crop rotation can reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers and herbicides by better using ecosystem services from a diverse set of crops. Additionally, crop rotations can improve soil structure and organic matter, which reduces erosion and increases farm system resilience. History Agriculturalists have long recognized that suitable rotations — such ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Citrus Canker
Citrus canker is a disease affecting ''Citrus'' species caused by the bacterium ''Xanthomonas'' (''X.axonopodis; X. campestris''). Infection causes lesions on the leaves, stems, and fruit of citrus trees, including lime, oranges, and grapefruit. While not harmful to humans, canker significantly affects the vitality of citrus trees, causing leaves and fruit to drop prematurely; a fruit infected with canker is safe to eat, but too unsightly to be sold. The disease, which is believed to have originated in Southeast Asia, is extremely persistent when it becomes established in an area. Citrus groves have been destroyed in attempts to eradicate the disease. Countries like Brazil and the United States also suffer from canker outbreaks. Biology ''Xanthomonas axonopodis'' is a rod-shaped Gram-negative bacterium with polar flagella. The bacterium has a genome length around 5 megabase pairs. A number of types of citrus canker diseases are caused by different pathovars and variants ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Soybean Cyst Nematode
The soybean cyst nematode (SCN), ''Heterodera glycines'', is the most devastating pest to soybean crop yields in the U.S., targeting the roots of soybean and other legume plants. When infection is severe SCNs cause stunting, yellowing, impaired canopy development, and yield loss. The symptoms caused by SCNs can go easily unrecognized by farmers—in some cases there are no warning symptoms before a loss of 30% of the yield.“You can literally have 40% yield loss with no symptoms,” says Greg Tylka, Iowa State University (ISU) Extension nematologist. Due to the slight stunting and yellowing, many farmers may mistake these symptoms as environmental problems when in fact they are SCNs. Another symptom of SCNs that may affect farmers' yields is stunted roots with fewer nitrogen-fixing nodules. Due to the fact that soybean cyst nematodes can only move a few centimeters in the soil by themselves, they mostly are spread via tillage or plant transplants. This area of infection will look ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |