ABSTRACT
Principles of Crop Disease Management The agricultural crops cultivated today are the result of selection of plants from wild populations for several centuries with the aim of improving the quantity and/or quality of the produce. While so doing, adequate care was not bestowed for the loss of resistance to diseases and other biotic and abiotic stresses exhibited by wild relatives of crop plants. It is a well-known fact that the primary purpose of farming is only cultivation of crops, and not prevention of diseases. There have been several instances of farmers adopting measures likely to adversely affect crop health because of economic, social, environmental or political reasons. Most of the crop production activities such as choice of crop and cultivar, planting date, planting method, plant density, fertilization and rate of fertilizers applied, tillage type, irrigation method and frequency and methods of harvesting and storage of products have a definite influence on disease incidence and spread. Hence it should be possible to integrate the components of disease management system with crop production scheme to a maximum extent to become acceptable to the growers.
