ABSTRACT
Crops are an integral part of the agricultural system of Pakistan. Besides several biotic and abiotic stresses, plant diseases are important yield-limiting factors in agricultural systems. They cause serious reductions in yield when they occur in epidemics. They have severe impact on the economy of the country. For instance, the single disease, cotton leaf curl disease has caused a loss of US$ 20 billion equivalent to 500 million bales in a period of 5 years from 1992 to 1997. It is very important to devise strategies to control crop diseases to feed the ever-increasing population of the country. In these strategies, use of plant host resistance, cultural practices, chemical therapy, biological control agents, and biopesticides/fungicides are more prominent approaches aimed at disease control in Pakistan and worldwide. In this chapter, we have focused on diseases of economic significance related to economically central crops according to the country's perspectives. The current status of diseases like wheat rusts, cotton leaf curl disease, rice blast, red rot of sugarcane, corn stalk rot, mango anthracnose, citrus blemishes, and greening diseases, wilt and blight diseases of chickpea, plant parasitic nematodes of vegetables and tree declines of shishum, mango, guava and citrus has been discussed in this chapter. Moreover, we have provided the way forward for tackling the problem of plant diseases with a special perspective of the Punjab province of Pakistan.
