**Meet the editor**

Dr Josphert N. Kimatu is the director of Research, Innovation, and Technology and a senior lecturer at the School of Pure and Applied Sciences, Department of Biology, South Eastern Kenya University, Kenya. He received his PhD degree in Plant Molecular Epigenetics from the Northeast Normal University (NENU) in Changchun City, China; his MPhil degree in Forestry

Pathology from the Moi University, Kenya; his BSc degree in Botany and Zoology from the Moi University, Kenya; and his PGDE degree from the Maseno University, Kenya.

He completed his post-harvest management in maize, legumes, and rice certificate course in four modules from the Stellenbosch University in South Africa, the Sydney University in Australia, and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana in 2012. He studied agricultural education in Sweden and biodiversity at the Technical University of Munich in Germany. He is a Commission for University Education trained external reviewer of Kenyan universities.

He has undertaken research in over nine crops and fodder plants and is widely published in peer-reviewed journals, university-level book chapters, and three reviews in plant cytosine DNA methylation, plant polyploidy, and hybrid necrosis. Moreover, he has presented findings in seminars and workshops in Kenya, Uganda, the USA, and South Africa.

Contents

**Preface VII**

**Section 1 Advances in Fungal Plant Pathology 1**

Chapter 1 **Modeling the Main Fungal Diseases of Winter Wheat: Constraints and Possible Solutions 3**

Chapter 2 **The Biology of Thecaphora frezii Smut and Its Effects on**

**Argentine Peanut Production 31**

**Section 2 Advances in Bacterial Plant Pathology 47**

**Bursaphelenchus 49**

Jianfeng Gu

**Bacteria 67**

Moussa El Jarroudi, Louis Kouadio, Bernard Tychon, Mustapha El

Luis Ignacio Cazón, Juan Andrés Paredes and Alejandro Mario Rago

Jarroudi, Jürgen Junk, Clive Bock and Philippe Delfosse

Chapter 3 **Systematic Identification of the Xylophilus Group in the Genus**

Chapter 5 **Leaf Curl Disease: A Significant Constraint in the Production of**

Siphathele Sibanda, Lucy Novungayo Moleleki, Divine Yufetar

Chapter 4 **Quorum Sensing in Gram-Negative Plant Pathogenic**

Shyntum and Teresa Ann Coutinho

Pradeep Kumar and Manish Kumar

Chapter 6 **Plant Defense and Counter Defense by Viruses 103**

**Section 3 Advances in Viral Plant Pathology 91**

**Tomato in India 93**

Muzafar Ahmad Sheikh
