Disease resistance

What is disease resistance?

Disease resistance refers to the ability of a plant to limit or withstand the effects of a pathogen or disease. There are several types of disease resistance in plants:

• Horizontal resistance - provides resistance to multiple pathogen strains/races. This type of resistance is generally governed by multiple genes and tends to be more durable.


• Vertical resistance - protects the plant from specific pathogen strains/races. This resistance tends to break down more quickly as new pathogen races evolve.


• Complete resistance - the plant shows no disease symptoms after infection. This is an extreme form of vertical resistance governed by major resistance (R) genes.


• Partial resistance - the plant shows reduced disease severity or slower disease development after infection. This type of resistance is quantitative and often controlled by multiple minor genes.

There are a few key ways that plants achieve disease resistance:

• Recognition of pathogen molecules to trigger defense responses


• Production of antimicrobial compounds


• Physical barriers like thick cell walls or cuticles

Breeding crops for improved disease resistance is hugely important for sustainable agriculture. Durable disease resistance allows farmers to reduce pesticide use and lower production costs. This is especially critical as many fungi, bacteria, and viruses evolve to overcome resistant crop varieties over time.

Finding and introducing new resistance genes also helps avoid devastating disease epidemics like the late blight of potato in Ireland from 1845-1852. Developing crops with broad-spectrum, horizontal resistance through gene pyramiding has become a major breeding strategy for many pathosystems.

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