Diseases of Vegetable Crops: Diagnosis and Management

Dr. Pratibha Sharma a distinguished Plant Pathologist, born on 23 May, 1954, graduated from Maharani’s College and completed her M.Sc in Botany (Plant Pathology) from university of Rajasthan, Jaipur an Ph.D. from Kanpur university. Soon after M.Sc. joined ICAR services through Agriculture research Service examination in 1976. Holding 30 years of research experience in various institutes of ICAR, viz., Directorate of Pulses research, Kanpur, Division of Floriculture, IARI, Directorate, IARI, Division of Plant Pathology, IARI, New Delhi in the areas of management of pathogens in pulses, flowers and vegetable crops. She is working currently as Principal scientist in the division of Plant pathology, IARI, New Delhi. Also actively engaged in teaching since 1990, guided a number of M.Sc. and Ph.D. student in the different aspects of plant diseases. The experience of working on different research projects of institutes, NATP, ICAR and DBT, has given an expertise on diagnosis, resistance, biological control of plant pathogens, integrated disease management, IPM, variability of important pathogens at molecular levels. The passion of work and keen interest in ecofriendly methods of crop protection has led her to develop an improved Trichoderma harzianum and T. viride isolates and bioformulation for management of major soil borne plant pathogens in vegetable crops and popularized that at farmers’ level. She is an active member of about ten scientific societies spread all over India, awarded by them for her work on Biological Control and IPM. She has 200 publications to her credit in the form of research, review papers, articles, manuals and books. She is also been the member of important organizations, examiner of different universities, chaired scientific sessions and delivered important lectures.