ABSTRACT
Essential plant nutrients in adequate amounts are necessary to improve crop yields, plant health, andquality.Theirjudicioususeisfundamentaltoimproveproductionef˜ciency,reduceproduction costs,andmaintainsustainabilityofcroppingsystems.Cropresponsestomineralnutrientsmaybe conduciveoradversetodiseases,dependingondiseasetype,severity,cropspecies,andcultivar. Graham(1983)reportedthatsincehigherplantsandtheirpathogenshavecoexistedoverevolutionary periods of time, most relationships have achieved a balance, neither the host nor the pathogen havingeliminatedtheother.Inmostsituations,balancedmineralnutritionimprovestheplant’s abilitytoresistdiseases,andadequaterate,form,andbalanceofmineralnutritionarefundamental fordiseasemanagement(Fageria,2009).Researchonthein¡uenceofmineralnutritiononplant diseasesisverylimited,andmostoftheworkhasnotinvolvedspecialistsinplantpathology,mineral nutrition, and agronomy. For example, to study the in¡uence of a particular nutrient on diseases, thenutrientinquestionshouldbeappliedatawiderangeofrates,whileothernutrientsshouldbe appliedinadequateamounts.Inaddition,mostoftheresearchonthistopichasbeenconducted under greenhouse conditions, which may not be applicable to ˜eld conditions.
