ABSTRACT

All known agronomically important bacterial diseases of sugarcane have been thoroughly described in a book published in 2000 (Rott, 2000a), which provides for each of these diseases an overview of their geographical distribution, diagnosis, transmission, host range, epidemiology and control. The most important progress since the publication of this book is the development of new diagnostic methods based on the detection of bacteria by amplifying DNA (PCR or polymerase chain reaction). These new methods are especially useful for slow-growing or fastidious bacteria for which culture methods are complex.