Modernization in plant breeding approaches for improvingbiotic stress resistance in crop plants

Abstract

Biotic stresses are a potential threat to global food security. The origin of new pathogens and insect races due to climatic and genetic factors is a major challenge for plant breeders in breeding biotic stress resistant crops. Yield losses due to biotic stresses have resulted in 800 million people underfed in the world. Reduced yield due to biotic stresses and increasing food demand put international food security at risk as 70% more food will be required in 2050. This review describes and compares the conventional and molecular genetics methods being used for breeding biotic stress resistant crops. In the past, classical breeding approaches like introduction, hybridization, composite crossing, multiline, and backcross breeding were utilized for this purpose. However, these methods were slow, expensive, and hectic for developing resistance in crops. Furthermore, breakdown of resistance due to fast evolving pathogens could not be coped with using these time consuming methods. Therefore, molecular genetics approaches like mutation, marker assisted selection (MAS), genomics, recombinant DNA technology, targeted induced local lesions in genome (TILLING), and virus induced gene silencing (VIGS) were adapted by breeders to develop effective resistance in crop plants in a shorter time. TILLING, being a nontransgenic method, is expected to become the most powerful tool for this purpose.

Barley diseases and their management- an Indian perspective

“…Since then, this gene has provided durable protection against this disease in widely grown barley cultivars. However, emergence of new races for this resistance gene resulted in some losses in late sown barley (Steffenson, 1992 (Hussain, 2015).…”

From Genetics to Functional Genomics: Improvement in Drought Signaling and Tolerance in Wheat

“…The selection of an appropriate breeding strategy to develop drought tolerant cultivars is the key step for a successful breeding program. Therefore, strategies which can transfer specific genes, exploit wild relatives of crops, identify and transfer genes with ease, require less time, and labor to develop cultivars are of great value ( Hussain, 2015 ). The advances in genetics, genomics, and functional genomics have enabled researchers to combine one or more advantages of different strategies to develop drought tolerant wheat.…”

Varietal screening for resistance against field and storage crop pests: An implication for Ethiopian crop variety development

“…Events of biotic stresses such as, potato blight Ireland, maize leaf blight in USA, coffee in Brazil and Bengal famine were mentioned as historical significance cases in the world (Hussain, 2015;Singh et al, 2017). These events had devastated food production which resulted in a number of human population"s deaths and migration to avoid famine.…”