Question

State the significance of disease triangle in tree crop production.

Answer 1

The disease triangle (Figure 1) is one of the first concepts encountered by college students in an introductory plant pathology course (1) and often may be re-encountered in higher level classes as a fundamental principle of the factors involved in disease causation. Thus, the figure illustrates one of the paradigms in plant pathology; that is, the existence of a disease caused by a biotic agent absolutely requires the interaction of a susceptible host, a virulent pathogen, and an environment favorable for disease development (1,6). Conversely, plant disease is prevented upon elimination of any one of these three causal components.