Abstract

Plant diseases constitute one of the greatest obstacles to efficient and steady agricultural production. While the study of plant pathology has progressed by leaps and bounds in foreign countries, its progress in India, though not of the same magnitude, is still, by no means megre. Considerable headway has been made on the fundamental work relating to soil borne pathogens especially of Fusariose wilts and the information now available is of immense value for planning our future programme of research on sound lines. Furthermore the evolution of disease resistant varieties by breeding and the ready availability of a variety of fungicides, antibioties, other chemicals equipment etc. for plant protection work have to a large extent revolutionised Indian Agricul- ture. Of late the radio-active isotopes have also entered the field of agriculture and offer great promise for future development of Indian agriculture. The modern developmental trends in plant pathology have been mostly on these lines and a brief account of the same is presented in this paper.

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