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Designation of Physiological Races of Plant Pathogens

Abstract

THE physiological races of most plant pathogens have been designated on an historical basis, being numbered in order of their isolation and identification. This has little intrinsic merit, because the order in which they are isolated depends largely on their relative frequencies within the population, and these frequencies vary with changes in the host population1. Moreover, rare races are likely to escape detection altogether, so that the total of known races is not a reliable guide to the inherent variability of the pathogen.

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References

  1. van der Plank, J. E., Disease Resistance in Plants (Academic Press, London, 1968).

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  2. Allard, R. W., Plant Breeding (Wiley, London, 1960).

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  3. Black, W. B., Mastenbroeck, C., Mills, W. R., and Peterson, L. C., Euphytica, 2, 173 (1953).

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  4. Flor, H. H., Adv. Genet., 8, 29 (1956).

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HABGOOD, R. Designation of Physiological Races of Plant Pathogens. Nature 227, 1268–1269 (1970). https://doi.org/10.1038/2271268a0

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