72654 - Plant And Pathogens

Learning outcomes

To understand how pathogens attack the plants and hijack their defences, how the plants perceive the pathogens and react to infection. This knowledge will provide to the students the tool to perform disease diagnosis and to design innovative, sustainable and tailored control methods to prevent plant diseases or to reduce their impacts.

Course contents

The course will provide the current knowledge on pathogen taxonomy and on plant-pathogen interactions. The course will also provide the key concepts of disease diagnostic and epidemiology in order to recognize the disease agents and their epidemiological cycles . The basic elements to formulate a correct diagnosis, based on symptoms and on analytical procedures will be provided. The acquired knowledge will be applied for the analysis of case studies.

Readings/Bibliography

Selected chapters from Agrios G. Plant Pathology, Academic Press,

P. Lepoivre. Phytopathologie: bases moléculaires et biologiques des pathosystèmes et fondements des stratégie de lutteDe Boeck & Laciers s.a., Editions De Boeck Université, Bruxelles

Handout material and specific publications

Teaching methods

Discussions about specific topics related to diagnosis of plant disease (symptomatology, etiology, plant sampling, etc.).

Trainings in laboratories, equipped with all the necessary facilities to perform analytical assays

Visits to farms/ greenhouses.

Assessment methods

Final oral exam with 3 questions: one about a pathogen, one about a pathogenic mechanism and one about a diagnostic methodology. Each question give max 10 points.

Teaching tools

Computer and projector, symptomatic/symptomless plant materials, laboratories equipments.

Office hours

See the website of Assunta Bertaccini