ABSTRACT
Plant pathogens cause heavy yield loss in cultivated crops and plants which leads to decremented production and productivity. In order to enhance the production and productivity, there is much necessity of improving crop varieties against various biotic stresses. The first step of improvement of crop/plant species is the proper diagnosis of the disease and identification of its causative agent. Better diagnosis and identification of microorganism would pave a way to formulate the strategy for its control and management. At present, there are several methods available for disease diagnosis, each having their own potential and shortcomings. Traditionally, available detection and diagnostic techniques for plant pathogenic microorganisms have been morphological, microscopic and biochemical characterization. Serological techniques like ELISA has sped up the accuracy of disease diagnosis. In the present era, the disease diagnosis is dominated by molecular methods comprising nucleic acid detection, molecular markers and serology-based diagnostic applications comprising antigens and antibodies etc. Besides, recent advancements and applications of genomics and proteomics offer new age solutions. In this chapter, the method of disease diagnosis and the methods involved in improvement of the crops/plants through conventional as well as molecular strategies like tissue culture, molecular breeding, transgenic, RNAi are discussed in details.
