The availability of relatively large number of disease resistant varieties compared to insect resistant cultivars suggest that incorporating disease resistance is relatively easy. This is also evident from the list of registered donors and available literature. Should it be understood that breeding for disease resistance is easier than that for insect resistance?
Although highly relevant, I am yet to receive feedback to my question from the congregation of RG members.
Dear arbind
please see the attached file that may be useful for you.
Best Regard
Dear Arbind K. Choudhary,
I should have seen the situation differently based on my own experience:
- I have worked so far on common beans and yam, diseases are ranked as the most important biotic threats for both of them. May be it is the case in most crops and therefore breeders do not perceive the need of focusing on relatively minor threats.
- In addition, the agronomic and chemical measures seem to be more efficient on pests than on diseases. And thus, breeders decide to control them using those management measures.
- To my knowledge, resistance breakdown is faster for pathogens than pests. Meaning that once a resistance variety is developed for a particular pest, it may take a while before breeding new varieties.
- Another issue is that of screening for insect which is much harder than for pathogens as insects are mobile and there is difficulty of uniformly inoculating test lines.
I hope others share their thoughts with you for a complete view on discussion.
Best wishes,
The typical approach of crops breeding in agriculture is very linear and always challenged by the evolutionary adaptations of the pathogen or pest. Therefore, crop protection is caught in an endless treadmill that has become more challenging because a breeding program may require years before a resistant crop variety becomes available to growers. Since the 1980s modern agriculture has been using genetically engineering as the approach to resolve this problem however GE agriculture has not been capable of resolving the problem. Pests have adapted also to our transgenic crops that require even more pesticides to be used to be protected. Why not looking at crop protection from a more ecological and evolutionary angle? Why not sowing crop seeds from various open pollinated varieties, thus increasing the genetic diversity of the crop population in the cultivated field? I wish research in this direction be given more emphasis in breeding programs. Data fro a vast body of literature in agroecology illustrate the benefits of this approach to sustainable agriculture.
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