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In the past few years, huge economic and environmental losses have resulted by fungal pathogens in agriculture and food production worldwide. Fungal toxins also pose a threat for food production and animal health. In the last decade, the site-specific fungicides has been used in plant protection, providing highly efficient protection against phytopathogens. However, the use of pesticides boosted problems with resistance in the targeted organisms and increased negative environmental impact of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides. Therefore, new methods are needed to control resistant populations of plant pathogens, including fungi. Mycoviruses are fungal viruses, i.e. viruses infecting fungi. Some mycoviruses affect the growth and virulence of the host fungus and may prevent successful infection of plant host. They have potential to reduce phytopathogens. In this review, the successful examples how mycoviruses alter hypovirulence in well-known phytopathogens are discussed. Mycoviruses could be useful as a one of new next generation pest-control products.

Plasma treatment is an interesting technology with many potential applications in industry. At present, more and more often we encounter papers that deal with utilization of plasma technology in food industry. This mini-review provides an overview of the latest developments in this area. At the beginning the principles of plasma interaction with solid surfaces are shortly discussed. The next chapters are focused on sterilization of food from bacteria and fungi. The infl uence of plasma treatment on the food quality and nutritional parameters is discussed in last section.

Self-incompatibility (AI) is a widespread mechanism used by flowering plants to prevent inbreeding depression and helps create and maintain genetic diversity within a species. Oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) and especially its modern varieties are characterized by high level of self-fertility. In an effort to increase the production current breeding is focused on the production of inbred lines for making the F1 hybrids and the self-incompatibility can be an interesting tool for production self- sterile lines. In Brassica napus, we found two recessive alleles of a gene SCR II. Different expression of both alleles does not correspond to phenotypic manifestation of self-incompatibility and we can assume that it is prevailed by repressor gene that does not lie on the S-locus. This is also reason, why the SCR gene cannot serve as a molecular marker of self-incompatibility in Brassica napus, although many authors believe that this gene is essential in AI reaction. Brassica napus belong to plants with complex genetic constitution, is composed by two genomes, A and C, which give the possibility of different interactions and makes it difficult to study compared with diploid B. rapa and B. oleracea. In further study it is therefore important to focus on the interactions between genes SCR, SRK and SLG, and their influence on others, such as supressor gene systems.

In the year 2007, there were one hundred and seventy-eight potato varieties enlisted in the Czech list of registered potato varieties. The classical morphometric approach to characterization is not effective for such a number of varieties especially for identification at the level of tubers. The needfulness of variety identification at the level of tubers is important mainly for trade aspect. The Czech law no.110/1997 Sb. about the food-stuff and tobacco products and the consequential ordinance (MZe č. 332 / 1997 Sb.) require guarantee of variety declaration in commercial relation for table potato. In this study we analyzed twenty potato varieties (Solanum tuberosum L.) cultivated in the Czech Republic. Every variety was represented by four independent replicates. This set of samples was analyzed by methods of PCR-SSR (Simple Sequence Repeats) and PCR-ISSR (Inter Simple Sequence Repeats). We discovered that both of tested methods afford sufficient polymorphism for variety identification, but the method of PCR-ISSR is not utilizable, because we observed the variability within variety. For outright identification of the whole set of potato varieties cultivated in the Czech Republic we recommend to use SSR, AFLP and retrotransposene-based markers as well as morphological markers.