Recent Developments in the Detection and Diagnosis of Fungal-Bacterial Plant Pathogens: From Lab Assay to Field Detection

Diseases are the great cause of the food crisis, demanding continuous monitoring and screening to minimize the damage. The untiring importunity of diseases severely affects food security and quality worldwide. Rapid and accurate measurement of diseases assumes importance, and the efforts in bringing it to reality by the scientific community resulted in numerous technological developments. The technologies are based on immunology and the detection of DNA, RNA, or specific proteins of interest. The versatility of PCR methods finds its way into diagnosis, detection, and interpretations of disease incidence, identifying the pathogen and potential threats, respectively. The demand for ready detection at the field level has sparked the genesis of LAMP assay and microneedle assays; however, they lack sensitivity and specificity sometimes. The highly sensitive methods include real-time PCR and laser techniques which have more practical applicability. The data of DNA methods is supported by the electron microscopy techniques which is indispensable in confirming the diseases. The future of detection and diagnosis relies on the sensitivity of the methods, and high-sensitivity methods have more reliability. In this chapter, we tried to cover the different methods used in the diagnosis and detection of pathogens and their reliability.