Principles of Plant Pathology Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The Father of Plant Pathology is Heinrich Anton de Bary.

The German botanist de Bary (1831-1888) proved experimentally that the late blight of potato is caused by the fungus now called Phytophthora infestans, worked out the life cycles of rust and smut fungi, and described heteroecism in wheat stem rust. These studies founded plant pathology as an experimental science and also earned him the title father of mycology.

Robert Koch established the germ theory of animal disease and Koch's postulates. E. J. Butler is the father of Indian plant pathology and mycology. B. P. Pal was a wheat breeder and the first Director General of ICAR.

Answer: C

Among the options, the answer is Heinrich Anton de Bary.

In 1861 de Bary inoculated healthy potato plants with spores of the late blight fungus and reproduced the disease, which proved that the fungus was its cause and not a result of decay. This settled the long debate after the Irish potato famine.

Earlier, in 1807, Benedict Prevost had shown that wheat bunt was caused by a fungus, and some texts credit him with the first demonstration; he is not among the options, so the paper takes de Bary, whose proof was the decisive one. Louis Pasteur worked on fermentation and animal disease, E. J. Butler on Indian plant diseases in the twentieth century, and M. S. Swaminathan on wheat and rice breeding.

Answer: D

The answer is All of these.

ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) detects the virus's coat protein with specific antibodies and is the routine test for indexing planting material. PCR, or RT-PCR for RNA viruses, detects the viral nucleic acid and is more sensitive. Hyperspectral imaging records reflectance in many narrow bands and picks up changes in leaf pigments and structure caused by infection, which allows non-destructive detection over a field, often before symptoms are visible.

Since all three are used, choosing any one alone is incomplete.