The impact of ecological, cultural and biological factors on the strategy and costs of controlling root diseases in tropical plantation crops as exemplified by Hevea brasiliensis

Abstract

Profitability and the availability of financial, material and manpower resources are studied before starting a commercial enterprise; the longer its term, the more complex the studies. The costs of controlling plantation diseases ( in the tropics or leaf diseases), predictably annual (seasonally induced, juvenil leaf), or perennial (root diseases). Especially in the case of root diseases, the pattern of investment, and hence profitabillity, can be affected by the choice of control measures and their timing, factors which must be evaluated by plant pathologists. These factors are examined in general term and with particular reference to effects on them of some aspects of the ecological, cultural and biological control of major root disease pathologens of some tropical plantation crops, Armillariella (Armillaria) mellea, Ganoderma philippii (pseudoferreum), Phellinus (Fomes) noxius, and Rigidoporus (Fomes) lignosus.