Abstract

Plant resistance is normally defined as the heritable ability of plants to escape attacking enemies, partially or fully, thus minimizing the amount of damage experienced by the plant (Painter, 1951; Mitchell et al., 2016). Plant resistance is pivotal in preventing crop yield loss to herbivores, and, thus, it is important to breed for (Hill et al., 2012). As many national and intergovernmental bodies have firmly endorsed Integrated Pest Management as the new paradigm for plant protection, the importance of resistant varieties is becoming even more important. However, measuring resistance is seldom straightforward, and many different approaches are being used, thus affecting biological interpretations. Choosing an appropriate measure for plant resistance is essential for engineering future varieties for improved plant production security, with less dependence on chemical pesticides. Here we suggest that the method selected to measure resistance should depend on the longevity of the crop (or culture) and the generation time of the herbivore.

Keywords

antibiosis; antixenosis; herbivory; integrated pest management; nonpreference; plant breeding; plant defense; resistance breeding

Published in

Frontiers in Plant Science
2017, Volume: 8, article number: 663

SLU Authors

• Stenberg, Johan A.

  • Department of Plant Protection Biology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Muola, Anne

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • University of Turku

Associated SLU-program

SLU Plant Protection Network


UKÄ Subject classification

Genetics and Breeding
Agricultural Science
Ecology


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2017.00663

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/82482