Biological control of weeds using plant pathogens: Accomplishments and limitations

The science and technology of weed control by using plant pathogens gained attention and momentum in the 1970s when some century-old concepts in weed biocontrol and plant disease epidemiology were successfully put to test and a few economically important weeds were controlled by two different strategies. Since then, researchers in different parts of the world have critically examined and tried to apply these strategies with the hope of solving some of the most intractable weed problems. Depending on ones point of view, this biological control approach has been quite successful or wrought with limitations. In this paper, we describe some of the accomplishments as well as the limitations in this field. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd.