All about 80000 diseases have been recorded in plants throughout the world, of them majority are associated with soil-borne diseases. Early, speedy and reliable detection of plant pathogens is prerequisite to optimize suitable and accurate management strategy. Traditionally, the most prevalent techniques used to identify plant pathogens relied upon culture-based morphological approaches; these methods were laborious, time-consuming. Molecular detection strategies could solve these limitations with improved accuracy and reliability. The DNA and protein based pathogen detection techniques such as DNA fingerprinting, biochemical assays, isothermal amplification techniques and serology are gaining importance in rapid soil borne pathogen detection due to their high degree of specificity to distinguish closely related organisms at different taxonomic levels. Here, we review the various molecular tools used for detection of several soil-borne plant pathogens and its implementation in agricult

soil-borne; plant pathogen; disease diagnosis; next generation; advance techniques

Plant pathogen diagnostic techniques have contributed significantly to our ability to detect and investigate in the laboratory and, most recently, directly in the field.The current state of the art techniques demonstrate reproducible sensitivity and are generally much faster than conventional techniques. Better understanding of pathogenicity factors, rapid and accurate detection of fungal pathogens to the species level are prerequisite for disease surveillance and development of novel disease control strategies. Moreover, a timely detection of resistance levels in soil borne fungi in a field would help the growers formulate proper decisions on resistance management programs to control diseases. However, since no single method satisfies all or even most of the emerging criteria for faster, effective, reproducible and sensitive results, there is still an obvious knowledge gap in research in this field.

Ghosh, R., Tarafdar, A., Chobe, D.R., Chandran, U.S. S., Sudharani and Sharma M. (2019). Diagnostic Techniques of Soil Borne Plant Diseases: Recent Advances and Next Generation Evolutionary Trends. Biological Forum – An International Journal, 11(2): 01