Mango Malformation

Malformation disease of mango (Mangifera indica) initially noted in patches in India has now turned into a global menace wherever mango is grown.  The challenge posed by the problem attracted interest of Scientists from various disciplines, continue to do so, and  will attract their attention until the problem is understood threadbare, and resolved.  For a long time, due to complex nature of the disease, the cause and causal agent was both hotly debated.  Only in recent years, the issue of the etiology of the disease has been resolved, epidemiology has been worked out to a large extent and silver bullet control measures have been replaced by IPM strategy based on the information generated on the physiology of pathogenesis and epidemiology of the disease. The monograph traces the course of research on mango malformation since its first report to date, analyzes the controversies that it evoked and records the current status of different aspects of the problem. It also provides software on expert system for forecasting and management of the disease. Thus, it is a saga of the last century’s most controversial and destructive plant disease of international significance. The author, Dr Dilip Kumar Chakrabarti, worked on this problem for his Ph. D programme and continued to pursue the problem during his tenure of over 25 years at the Narendra Dev University of Agriculture & Technology, at Kumargunj, Uttar Pradesh in India, located in an area where mango is grown extensively, dwelling on all aspects of the problem and has now developed a software package that helps greatly in understanding and managing the problem to tolerable limits.