Application of Nuclear Technology in Plant Diseases Management

Food production and food security is an essential precursor to sustainable development in agriculture. Currently, more than 800 million people, generally in Africa and Asia, suffer from hunger and agriculture is considered as the main source of food for them. One of the application of nuclear technology is reducing the damages of plant pest and diseases. The application of nuclear techniques in plant pathology can be grouped in three categories including disease tracing, mutagenesis induction and radiation of crops to induce resistance and destruction of pathogens. As a new method to induce defense responses to biotic and abiotic stresses, nowadays, gamma radiation is used to improve the growth in the way to induce the plant resistance to environmental tensions and plant pathogens as well. Use of this potential, especially in management of seed and seedling diseases is very important to reduce a big portion of crop losses caused by plant pathogens in the first weeks of seedling growth.