A roadmap for the detection of plant pests and diseases

Wageningen University and Research (WUR) has compiled an overview of the various techniques, or so-called detection platforms, for the timely detection, identification and monitoring of plant diseases and pests in an infographic. This is the first time all this expertise has been available in such a succinct form. Companies that deal with diagnosing plant diseases can now easily see precisely which technique is the best for detecting a given fungus, virus, bacterium or other harmful organism.

Reliable diagnostics serve as the basis for the cultivation and trade of healthy crops. Healthy crops in turn are essential for safe and sustainable agriculture, contributing to wholesome nutrition and a better quality of life. In short, healthy plants feed the world.

Major crops are, however, threatened by a range of plant diseases and pests. Reliable diagnostic tests allow these pests to be detected, identified and/or monitored in a timely fashion.

Free download
The infographic "Platforms for the detection of plant diseases and pests" (in Dutch) can be downloaded for free and describes technologies such as Luminex, which detects multiple plant pathogens simultaneously by binding them to coloured paramagnetic beads, Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), which maps known and unknown plant diseases within 25 hours, LAMP, which conducts fast analyses in the field, and TaqMan-PCR, which is based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a method for which Kary Mullis received the Nobel Prize in 1993.

For each technology, the infographic shows speed, location, sensitivity, specificity, cost, number of pathogens per sample, number of samples per test, quality versus quantity, and, in summary, the added value of the platform.

Source: Wageningen University & Research