Epidemiology of Mycotoxin Producing Fungi

Abstract

Epidemiology of Mycotoxin Producing Fungi . Xu, X., Bailey, J. A. and Cooke, B. M. (eds) 26·5 × 20 cm, 134 pp. Dordrecht, the Netherlands : Kluwer Academic Publishers (http://www.springeronline.com), 2003 . £50. ISBN 0-40201-533-X (hardback). This volume of 11 papers is the second to emerge from the Workshop of the EU COST Action 835, which was concerned with ‘Agriculturally Important Toxigenic Fungi’. These data were first presented at a meeting of collaborating pathologists at East Malling, Kent, UK in September 2002, and subsequently published together in the European Journal of Plant Pathology109, 645–774. With this information already available, potential purchasers must therefore decide whether this slim, hardbound copy is desirable at £50. If so, it can accompany the previous special issue on Mycotoxins in Plant Disease, reviewed in Plant Pathology52, 529–30. Papers here cover the epidemiology of causal organisms in cereals and other various combinable crops, several fruit and vegetables, fig and grape. The latter is covered by Battilini and co-workers from Piaenza, Italy and deals with the mycotoxin ochratoxin, produced mainly by Aspergillus carbonarius and unknown prior to 1996. From the same region, Logsieco and associates, based at Bari, Italy, describe the present problem with a range of Mediterranean crops and their mycotoxin-producing pathogens. Most contributions, as might be expected, cover small-grain cereals and causal Fusarium species within a European context, although Gary Munkvold from Iowa State University provides a perspective on ear and kernel rot diseases of maize. Fusarium ear blight of wheat and environmental influences on epidemiology are covered in separate contributions by Xiangming Xu in the UK and Fiona Doohan, Jo Brennan and Mike Cooke in Ireland, while molecular approaches to toxicology and epidemiology are dealt with by the Nicholson group from the UK and Waalwijk and others in the Netherlands. In a separate paper, Xu explores relationships between inoculum and infection potentials and possible forecasting systems for ear blight of small-grain cereals. The ecology of postharvest fungal colonization is dealt with by Magan's group from Silsoe, UK, and one paper on interdependence of the species complex in wheat stem rot and another on strategies for controlling fusarium head blight in cereals are contributed by workers formerly associated with Harper Adams University College, Newport, UK.