Course information

This course deals with diseases that attack economically important crops.  Emphasis will be put on history of crop diseases, importance of crop diseases, causal agents (bacteria, fungi, viruses, nematodes, protozoa, phytoplasma), epidemiology (interplay of factors responsible for disease development), symptomatology, yield losses, and management of diseases.  Diseases of specific crops (coffee, maize, bananas, beans, ground nuts, etc) will be dealt with in detail.  Practical work will focus on pathogen identification from diseased crops (microscopic) and field identification of diseased crops.