The intensive nature of modern agriculture in the European Economic Community, with the demand for better standards of crop quality and yield has required a high degree of disease control. Increased attention to crop hygiene, the production of disease-resistance cultivars and particularly advances in fungicide technology and use have all contributed towards major improvements in crop yield and quality. However, yield increases have led to the accumulation of surpluses of certain agricultural commodities. The current revision of price support within the EEC for crops such as cereals may lead to an examination of input levels as part of an overall effort to reduce the costs of cultivation. This may be especially reflected in the selection and frequency of use of fungicides, and it is possible that with field crops such as cereals, greater reliance in the immediate future may be placed on innate host resistance to diseases. On the other hand, the demand for high quality fruit and vegetable produce is increasing. Strict hygiene, including the development of soilless growing systems for crops under glass, as well as the continued intensive use of fungicides to achieve consistent and thorough control of disease is likely to remain a feature of growing systems where quality is of prime importance. It is, however, in these systems that problems of fungicide resistance are most likely to occur, and the development of strategies to prevent fungicide resistance is recognised by many as a highly desirable objective.

Overall, the crop protection discipline is one of current development and change. This text provides a broad review of current practices adopted by farmers and growers to control diseases of major crops in the UK, describes some of the problems which have arisen following the deployment of these measures and indicates some of the future developments likely to occur in the sphere of crop disease control.