Current and Prospective Methods for Plant Disease Detection

Abstract

Food losses due to crop infections from pathogens such as bacteria, viruses and fungi are persistent issues in agriculture for centuries across the globe. In order to minimize the disease induced damage in crops during growth, harvest and postharvest processing, as well as to maximize productivity and ensure agricultural sustainability, advanced disease detection and prevention in crops are imperative. This paper reviews the direct and indirect disease identification methods currently used in agriculture. Laboratory-based techniques such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR), immunofluorescence (IF), fluorescence in-situ hybridization (FISH), enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), flow cytometry (FCM) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) are some of the direct detection methods. Indirect methods include thermography, fluorescence imaging and hyperspectral techniques. Finally, the review also provides a comprehensive overview of biosensors based on highly selective bio-recognition elements such as enzyme, antibody, DNA/RNA and bacteriophage as a new tool for the early identification of crop diseases.

Protocolos de aislamiento y diagnóstico de Phytophthora Spp.: enfoque aplicado a la investigación

“…Cuando se lleva a cabo un diagnóstico fitopatológico se espera que el resultado se obtenga lo más rápido posible, para lo cual existen kits, pruebas de ELISA, hibridación in situ fluorescente (FISH), técnicas hiperespectrales, biosensores basados en anticuerpos, inmunoflorescencia, imágenes de florescencia, termografía, y pruebas de tiras reactivas para la detección directa de patógenos en campo que son de gran ayuda y pueden detectar Phytophthora (Miller et al, 1994;Fang y Ramasamy, 2015).…”

“…Algunos autores sugieren desinfestar superficialmente los tejidos, para lo cual, las secciones de tejido se sumergen en etanol al 70% durante 10 a 30 s, después se lavan con agua destilada hyperspectral techniques, antibody based biosensors, immunoflorescence, fluorescence, thermography, and test strips for the direct detection of pathogens in the field that are of great help and can detect Phytophthora (Miller et al, 1994;Fang and Ramasamy, 2015).…”

Plant Disease Diagnosis: Technological Advancements and Challenges

“…The technique is extensively used for cell counting, cell sorting, biomarker detection and protein engineering. Multiple samples can be simultaneously processed through electronic detection apparatus and the technique measures many parameters simultaneously (Fang and Ramasamy, 2015). Flow cytometry is extensively used for assessment of microorganisms in drinking and marine water, food processing.…”

“…Plant diseases not only hamper the productivity of plants but also affect the human and livestock health, which contributes to environmental damage. In major cereals biotic stress cause loss of over 23% of estimated attainable yield (FAO, 2009), in addition, postharvest losses due to diseases and substandard of the quality of produce are reported to be 30-40% (Fang and Ramasamy, 2015). Further, approximately $40 billion are lost annually due to plant diseases in the United States alone.…”

Detection of fungi using a long-period fibre grating

“…All across the globe, crop infections causing food losses are among persistent issues. In contrast to chemical compounds, biofungicides prove to be useful bioagents for managing efficiently greenhouse vegetables and floriculture crops [14]. Since the biofungicides do not cure any pre-existing pathogen, they have to be applied before the onset of disease development.…”