Ancient, mid-time, and recent history of seed pathology

Abstract

Seed is the basic unit of crop production. An optimum plant count depends on seed for their next progeny. Issues related to seed should be handled very carefully, since sowing of a poor-quality seed leads to undesirable loss in plant stand and hence crop yield. Focus on seed quality and seed health has been a point of serious consideration since time immemorial. Seed-related aspects are puzzling the researchers since long back. Well-developed science of seed pathology has been in existence for more than 100 years. Seed pathology includes studies on the mechanism of seed transmission, pathogenesis, epidemiology of seed-borne diseases, and control measures adopted against these diseases, ranging from crop management through chemical control to legislative precautions, as well as the technology of microbiological seed testing by covering the total range of seed-borne pathogens, viz., fungi, bacteria, viruses, nematodes, and physiological defects which may affect any member of the plant kingdom. The various aspects, viz., seed health, management of seed-borne diseases, seed treatments, and their detection and diagnosis techniques, were developed with the time. The systematic application of these techniques leads to the significant availability of healthy and disease-free quality seed. The institutional and technological developments in the science of seed pathology are being discussed in the present chapter. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020.