Basic Plant Pathology Methods

by James B. Sinclair, Onkar Dev Dhingra

The Second Edition of this bestseller brings together basic plant pathology methods published in diverse and often abstract publications. The Second Edition is updated and expanded with numerous new figures, new culture media, and additional methods for working with a greater number of organisms. Methods are easy to use and eliminate the need to seek out original articles. This reference allows for easy identification of methods appropriate for specific problems and facilities. Scientific names of pathogens and some of their hosts are updated in this edition. The book also acts as a research source providing more than 1,800 literature citations.
The Second Edition includes chapters on the

448 pages, Paperback

First published April 5, 1995

Reviews

[Lloyd Downey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is somewhat dated, though the basic methods of cultivating spores and inoculating plants and sampling soils for pathogenic fungi, bacteria, nematodes etc., don't seem to have changed all that much since I did plant pathology courses. However, this is not a manual for how to identify a pathogen that is damaging a crop or a tree. There doesn't appear to be any system there for approaching Plant pathology (or the identification of an infective agent) in a systematic way. There are long lists of media suitable for growing different pathogens but, presumably you have to know the pathogen you are dealing with in order to select the most suitable medium. So I missed this detection methodology. The book seems to be most suitable for a laboratory situation that has been established to deal with a particular crop and a particular sort of pathogen....for example rust in wheat. So the researchers know, more or less, beforehand, what they are dealing with. And, I imagine, in this case, the various gadgets and procedures would be of immense value. Though, when I skimmed the book, prior to buying, I thought that I might get more out of it. But it seems to be most useful as a reference book for the laboratory shelves ....to be drawn upon from time to time for procedures and recipes. And I think it would be useful for this. There is an exhaustive list of references included. Clearly, someone is doing a lot of reading or a lot of referencing of Chemical Abstracts etc.
I would certainly have appreciated some colour in the printing. And I would have liked for it to have a methodology for narrowing down a pathogen and finally identifying it. ...maybe with some microphotos etc. But, I guess, this is not what the book sets out to do. Also it's now 30 years old. So the technology will have changed. I imagine that various sorts of DNA analysis is now being employed routinely. Three stars from me.

[Diego Reig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dated but you might find some useful tidbits if you know what you're looking for