“…In particular, such assays reduce the pathologist's reliance on culturing pathogens out of plant tissue. PCR-based detection methods have been developed for many species, including F. avenaceum, F. culmorum and F. graminearum (Schilling et al, 1996), F. poae , Tapesia acuformis and Tapesia yallundae (Gac et al, 1996;Nicholson et al, 1997), Microdochium nivale and Rhizoctonia cerealis . Though the importance of PCR-based pathogen detection tools is widely recognized, this study shows that caution is required in their design and use.…”