Fungal Plant Diseases

The most recent estimate reveals the fact that around thirty thousand different diseases caused by fungi, bacteria, viruses, nematodes etc. cause great loss to crops, fruits etc. every year.

Such losses can occur in the field or in the store-house or at any time between sowing and consumption of the harvest. In our own country, crop diseases are destroying food grains and other products to the tune of Rs. 500 crore every year.

For millions of people all over the world who still depend on their own plant produce, plant diseases can make the difference between a happy life and a life haunted by hunger and can even result in death from starvation.

Late blight of potato, a disease of potato caused by Phytophthora infestans destroyed the potato crop of Ireland in 1845 and resulted in the death from starvation of a quarter million people.

In the last stages of Second World War (1943) Bengal had to face a serious famine.