Questions for Studying Individual Plant Diseases

For each assigned disease, please come to class prepared to answer the questions listed below. Develop brief answers to these questions by paraphrasing the assigned reading. It may help you to take written notes as you find answers. These questions will form the basis of much of the content of the exams.

Introductory

What is the name of the pathogen?
Describe the host range in 10 words or less.

Disease Cycle

Survival:
Which pathogen structures survive between seasons?
Where do they survive?

Production of Primary Inoculum: This is the stage when the pathogen produces a structure that can initiate infection.
After over-seasoning, which pathogen structures can infect a plant?
Where are they produced?

Dispersal of Primary Inoculum:
How do these structures disperse?

Establishment of Infection: This is the stage when the parasite initiates its food relationship with the plant.
Where on the plant (leaves, flowers, twigs, etc) does the pathogen penetrate?
How does it penetrate? (For example, does it penetrate wounds? Is it introduced by a vector?)

Colonization (=Invasion): This is the stage where the pathogen grows on/in the plant and feeds.
Where in the plant does the pathogen colonize?
How does it spread in the plant? (For example, via translocation in the phloem or xylem?
Mycelial growth within the tissue, upon the tissue? Through cell multiplication?)

Symptoms:
In 20 words or less, list the key symptoms on all plant parts affected.

Production of Secondary Inoculum (if produced):
Which structures are produced that can initiate new infections?
Where on the plant are they produced?

Dissemination of Secondary Inoculum (if produced):
How do these structures spread?

Production of Survival Structures:
Where are survival structures produced in/on the plant?