Whither rice health in the lowlands of Asia: Shifts in production situations, injury profiles, and yields

Abstract

China were paid when no-one was ill, but payment was stopped when illness occurred (Clapier-Valladon, 1990). "Health" and "beauty" are often related: in sub-Saharan Africa, women's beauty is often linked to two characteristics: the smoothness and grain of the skin and being fat, very much in contrast with the Western standard of beauty: thinness sometimes bordering sickliness (Eco, 2004). In many parts of China, in the Philippines, and in the Ivory Coast, a healthy child is often a fat one (S. Savary, personal observation, West Africa, 1980Africa, -1990. Health is a relative notion in humans depending on cultures and past experience (of poverty, of hunger, and of disease). Health is also relative over time: one is more or less healthy. This relativeness does not exist in disease: one is ill or not.Plant health is even harder to define (Döring et al., 2012). Like small children, sick plants cannot speak; they cannot point at part of their tissues where sickness might reside. One can only declare

What Can Be Learnt by a Synoptic Review of Plant Disease Epidemics and Outbreaks Published in 2021

“…Although yield losses in major crops are increasingly well documented (Savary et al 2019(Savary et al , 2022, the underlying disease dynamics driving losses are much less well studied. Diseases in minor crops, non-food crops and natural plant systems are particularly poorly characterised.…”

“…Historically, plant disease epidemics and outbreaks have been associated with increased interconnectedness of the landscape, climate change, human movement, and increased intensification of crop production practices such as irrigation. Plant pathogens are responsible for an estimated 20-40% of crop losses, although net effects are hard to quantify due to a lack of evidence related to precise distribution and impact (Savary et al 2019(Savary et al , 2022. Even so, even less is known about the prevalence of pathogens of minor crops, of those of regional importance only, of non-food crops or concerning the provision of ecosystem services from native wild plant populations and communities (Gougherty andDavies 2021, Jeger 2021).…”

A Synoptic Review of Plant Disease Epidemics and Outbreaks Published in 2021

“…Although losses in major crops are increasingly well documented (Savary et al 2019(Savary et al , 2022, the underlying disease dynamics driving these losses are much less well studied. Disease epidemics and outbreaks in minor crops, non-food crops and natural plant systems are particularly poorly characterised.…”

“…Production may vary from annuals to perennial, with different production systems from seed production to vegetative propagation in plant nurseries to the harvested crop (Table 2). As previously described, comprehensive reviews on multiple pathogens of a single host (e.g., rice, Savary et al 2022) or a higher taxonomic grouping across multiple hosts (e.g., viruses, Jones 2021) have already been published. The follow sections summarise the results for categories of article from the literature review (see Table 3, bottom section), reporting the categories in alphabetical order.…”

“…Historically, plant disease epidemics and outbreaks have been associated with increased interconnectedness of the landscape, climate change, human movement, and increased intensification of crop production practices such as irrigation. Crop losses attributed to disease have been estimated mainly for globally important food crops (Savary et al 2019(Savary et al , 2022. Much less is known for minor crops, for those of regional importance only, for non-food crops or concerning the provision of ecosystem services from native wild plant populations and communities (Gougherty andDavies 2021, Jeger 2021).…”