In ancient times, due to the low level of production, human's ability to understand and transform nature was extremely limited. Often fantasy is that supernatural gods kill the changes of natural phenomena. People think that plant diseases are caused by people committing crimes that make God angry or the movement of the sun, moon and stars. This theological concept ruled for 2000 years.
/kloc-Since the late 8th century, many scientists have broken through the shackles of religious beliefs, conducted extensive research on the nature of plant diseases and made valuable contributions. France's MarthieuTillet proved that wheat smut was caused by a kind of "black powder" through experiments, and then France's M.Prevost proved that the pathogen was a fungus, becoming the first person to prove the direct cause of plant diseases with facts, which was also one of the beginnings of the germ theory.
In 1845 and 1846, a serious potato disease destroyed almost all the potatoes in Ireland, leading to the great famine. This tragic event made many scientists focus on plant diseases and gave great encouragement to the study of plant pathology. At that time, there were different opinions about the cause of this disease of potato. German doctor and mycologist Anton Bader-Li spent five years studying, and reached 186 1, which completely confirmed that it was a late blight of potato caused by Phytophthora infestans, indicating that fungi were the cause of plant diseases. Therefore, the theory of plant pathogens was established. He also pointed out that smut and downy mildew were both the results of fungal infection, and rust fungus was parasitic, so it was worthy of being the father of plant pathology.
After LuisPasteur and RobertKoch( 1876) discovered that the pathogen of animal anthrax was bacteria, RobertKoch put forward the famous RobertKoch rule, ThomasJ J. Burrill (1877) proved in the United States that the fire blight of pears and apples was caused by bacteria. ErwmF。 Smith of the United States has made outstanding contributions to the study of plant bacterial diseases since 1895, and has written more than 100 papers on plant bacterial diseases, especially on bacterial wilt of cucurbitaceae, Solanaceae and Cruciferae, which has eliminated people's doubts about its pathogens. He studied the anatomy and development of fruit tree root cancer for the first time, thinking that it is similar to human and animal tumors and is known as the founder of plant bacterial diseases.
Plant virus diseases have been concerned for a long time, but the understanding of viruses began at the end of 19. German Adolf Meyer (1886) found that tobacco mosaic can be spread through the sap of diseased leaves, which proved that the disease is an infectious disease. Russians (1892) further proved that the juice of tobacco mosaic virus is still pathogenic after passing through the bacterial filter. Dutch scientist Martinus W. Beijerinck (1898) repeated this experiment and got the same result. He found that this pathogenic substance can diffuse in agar, which is considered as an "infectious living fluid" and later called a virus. This is the first time to distinguish plant virus diseases from other infectious plant diseases. Since then, similar diseases have been discovered continuously, and the relationship between diseases and vector insects has also been discovered. In 1935, W.M.Standey of the United States purified tobacco mosaic virus by ammonium sulfate precipitation and lead acetate decoloration, and obtained pure crystals, which proved to be a kind of protein. 1936, F.C.Bawden and N.W.Pirie in Britain discovered that tobacco mosaic virus contains nucleic acid (RNA). 1956 H. Fraenkel-Conrat found that tobacco mosaic virus, after removing protein, was contagious only by inoculating nucleic acid, and showed its original symptoms. R.Shepherd et al. (1968) proved that cauliflower mosaic virus is a DNA virus, and T.O.Diener found this virus-like virus in 1972.
T Needham of Britain (1743+0743) first reported the plant parasitic nematodes in wheat gall. N.A.Cobb( 1907), the founder of plant parasitic nematodes, established the first institute of nematology in the United States Department of Agriculture, and made a systematic study on plant parasitic nematodes from 19 13- 1932, making great contributions to the taxonomy, morphology and methodology of nematodes. 19 16, Zhang Zuchun published a report on wheat nematode and millet nematode near Beijing, and other domestic scholars also investigated other plant nematodes. Among them, Zhu Zai 1940 developed a scab removal machine for wheat nematodes, and the scab removal rate reached over 99%. During the period of 1967, Japanese scientist Yuji Tuju discovered several phytoplasma spread by leafhoppers, which caused plants to lose their green. Can think seriously and sum up experience. Subsequently, some people put forward the triangle relationship and tetrahedron relationship of diseases, and thought that the change of any factor would have a certain impact on plant diseases. After 1970s, with the development of ecology, the concept of plant disease system and more scientific comprehensive disease control strategies were put forward in the field of plant pathology, which made plant pathology enter a mature stage. Since the late 1980s, more and more theories and methods of biochemical technology, genetic engineering and molecular biology have been used to study the pathogenesis of plant diseases, and to clarify the molecular basis of mutual recognition between hosts and pathogens in the process of plant diseases, as well as the gene structure, expression and regulation mechanism of hosts and pathogens related to the disease course. In recent years, amazing progress has been made in plant disease resistance genetic engineering based on DNA recombination technology and plant pathogen molecular markers used in pathogen population genetics and disease epidemiology research.
Plant pathology started late in China, and people began to engage in plant diseases around 19 12. Since 1950s, most of the attention of plant disease workers has been focused on the main cash crop diseases. Such as wheat rust, rice blast, cotton verticillium wilt, Chinese cabbage and apple tree rot. At present, there is no blank in the field of plant pathology in the world. Through the efforts of plant disease workers, some fields have reached or exceeded the world advanced level. It should be pointed out that the future development of plant pathology has a long way to go, and it needs the cooperation and continuous efforts of multidisciplinary scientists to make greater contributions to ensuring human food sources, optimizing the environment and sustainable development of agriculture.