Extending the durability of cultivar resistance by limiting epidemic growth rates

Cultivar resistance is an essential part of disease control programmes in many agricultural systems. The use of resistant cultivars applies a selection pressure on pathogen populations for the evolution of virulence, resulting in loss of disease control. Various techniques for the deployment of host...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the Royal Society. B, Biological sciences Biological sciences, 2017-09, Vol.284 (1863), p.20170828-20170828
Main Authors: Carolan, Kevin, Helps, Joe, van den Berg, Femke, Bain, Ruairidh, Paveley, Neil, van den Bosch, Frank
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural management
Agriculture
Chemical control
Crops, Agricultural - genetics
Cultivars
Disease control
Disease Resistance - genetics
Durability
Epidemics
Evolution
Fungi - drug effects
Fungi - genetics
Fungi - pathogenicity
Fungicide
Fungicides
Fungicides, Industrial
Genetics
Genetics, Population
Growth rate
Integrated Disease Control
Pathogens
Plant Diseases - genetics
Plant Diseases - microbiology
Population genetics
Population growth
Selection
Selection, Genetic
Virulence
Virulence Management
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Summary:Cultivar resistance is an essential part of disease control programmes in many agricultural systems. The use of resistant cultivars applies a selection pressure on pathogen populations for the evolution of virulence, resulting in loss of disease control. Various techniques for the deployment of host resistance genes have been proposed to reduce the selection for virulence, but these are often difficult to apply in practice. We present a general technique to maintain the effectiveness of cultivar resistance. Derived from classical population genetics theory; any factor that reduces the population growth rates of both the virulent and avirulent strains will reduce selection. We model the specific example of fungicide application to reduce the growth rates of virulent and avirulent strains of a pathogen, demonstrating that appropriate use of fungicides reduces selection for virulence, prolonging cultivar resistance. This specific example of chemical control illustrates a general principle for the development of techniques to manage the evolution of virulence by slowing epidemic growth rates.
ISSN:0962-8452
1471-2954
DOI:10.1098/rspb.2017.0828