Plant virus diseases are a major limiting factor to quality and productivity of many cereals, horticultural, ornamentals and other economically important crops around the world. Annual losses due to virus diseases may vary, but under the pathogen favorable conditions, virus diseases may lead to disastrous consequences to farming community. As there is no cure for virus diseases, the management options emphasizes on exclusion of the virus, minimizing virus spread, and development of host plant resistance. The scientific literature concerning virus occurrence, characterization, diagnosis, detection, and management of plant viruses is growing at a fast pace. The book covers recent information on emerging and re-emerging plant viruses affecting important crops in tropics and subtropics. The book provides the comprehensive information on disease distribution, occurrence, properties of the virus including the recent approaches for virus diagnosis, viruses affecting horticultural crops, genetic transformation and induced systemic approach for disease resistance in virus affected plants. Begomo viruses and Illarviruses have been dealt in detail. The coverage of information on various topics is up-to-date and provides thought provoking ideas for addressing important viral disease problems in the tropics and subtropics.
Autorentext
Dr. Govind Pratap Rao is working as a Principal Scientist (Plant Pathology) at IARI, New Delhi. He did his M.Sc (Botany) and Ph.D. in Plant Virology from Gorakhpur University. He did Post doc at University of Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA with Prof R.E. Ford on Characterization of Sugarcane mosaic virus and Maize dwarf mosaic virus in 1994. Dr. Rao has 26 years of research experience on plant pathology specially on plant virology. Dr. Rao has worked on legume viruses, cucrbit viruses, sugarcane and cereal viruses and identified and characterized new pea and sugarcane viruses any many new phytoplasma diseases in India. He has published over 100 research publications and authored and edited nearly 17 books to his credit. He has also guided 3 MSc and 10 PhD students on different aspects of plant pathology.
He has been worked in different capacities as Scientific Officer, Sr Scientific Officer (Pl Pathology), Head, Div Plant Pathology and Officer-in-Charge at Research Stations of UP Council of Sugarcane Research at Seorahi, Gorakhpur and Shahjahanpur since 1988 to 2010. He has been awarded several prestigious awards to his credit. The most important ones are: National Biotechnology Associateship Award (1991-1992) from Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India; Young Scientist Associateship Award (1994-1995) from DST, Govt. of India; Overseas BOYSCAST Associateship Award (1996) from DST, Govt. of India; President Award, Society for General Microbiology, UK 1998; Best U.P. Agriculture Scientist Award (UPCAR) ,Govt of Uttar Pradesh in 2002; Vigyan Ratna Award by CST, Govt. of UP for the year 2003-2004; Jin Xiu Qiu Award in 2006 by People's Govt. of Guangxi, Nanning, China.
The Rao is Editor-in-Chief of Sugar Tech, international journal of sugar crops and related industries and Phytopathogenic Mollicutes, an international journal of phytoplasma, spiroplasma and phloem limited microorganisms. Dr. Rao is also Secretary of Indian Virological Society, New Delhi and member of prestigious scientific organization of Indian Phytopathological Society, American Phytopathological Society, American society of Mircrobiology, British Society of Plant Pathology,UK and many others. He is also Member of Pathology Committee of International Associations of Sugarcane Technologists (ISSCT), Mauritius (2004-2012) and International Phytoplasma Working group, Itlay.
Besides, Dr. Rao has visited 27 countries as a visiting scientists, for invited talk, post doc fellow, research training, panel discussion and for attending workshop and conferences in USA, Australia, UK, France, Serbia, China, Singapore, Columbia, Reunion, France, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Thailand, Turkey, Germany, Italy, Finland, Norway and others.
Dr. V K Baranwal is a Principal Scientist and in charge Virology Unit at the Division of Plant Pathology, IARI, New Delhi. He obtained his Master and Doctoral degrees in Botany from Lucknow University. He joined Agricultural Research Service of ICAR in 1985 and served at Central Plantation Crops Research Institute and National Centre of IPM before joining at IARI in 1999. He has under gone training for IPM in Indonesia and worked at Biotech Centre, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey in USA under DBT Overseas Associateship programme. At IARI he has extensively worked on development of serological and molecular diagnostics such as ELISA, PCR and Real time PCR, Multiplex PCR and molecular characterization of viruses and virus like pathogens mainly associated with alliums, citrus, banana and vine grape. His research interest also includes evaluation of promoters from Badnavirus,and production of virus free plants through tissue culture. He has successfully executed several externally funded projects and has a joint programme with private sector under SBIRI. In 2010, he was invited to deliver a talk at Citrus Education and Research Centre, Lake Alfred, University of Florida. He has published more than 50 research papers in national and international journals. He is a senior faculty member of Division of Plant Pathology, IARI and has guided 3 M.Sc. and 2 Ph.D. students. Currently he is supervising four students for Ph.D. degree.