Durable resistance or efficient disease control? Adult Plant Resistance (APR) at the heart of the dilemma

Summary

This demogenetic modelling study addresses a fundamental paradox in resistance breeding: weak APR genes reduce pathogen selection pressure and remain durable but provide minimal disease protection, whilst stronger APR genes may offer short-term disease suppression through competitive exclusion and fitness costs—particularly when combined with major resistance genes via mixtures or rotations. Using the spatially explicit stochastic model landsepi parameterised for rust fungi in cereal crops, the authors provide the first systematic investigation of how resistance efficiency and activation timing jointly impact both durability and control at landscape scale, suggesting that effective resistance management requires balancing both objectives rather than optimising either property independently.

UK applicability

These findings are applicable to UK cereal production, where rust diseases of wheat and barley remain economically significant and resistance management strategies are central to sustainable crop protection. The study's emphasis on landscape-scale dynamics and the trade-off between short-term disease control and long-term resistance durability has direct implications for UK breeding programmes and integrated pest management policy.

Key measures

Resistance durability (selection pressure on pathogen adaptation), disease control efficacy (epidemic reduction), pathogen genotype competition, fitness costs of adaptation, landscape-scale epidemiological outcomes

Outcomes reported

The study used spatially explicit demogenetic modelling to compare how resistance efficiency, activation timing, and pathogenicity traits affect both the durability of adult plant resistance (APR) and disease control effectiveness at landscape scale. Simulations examined APR deployment alone and in combination with major resistance genes against rust fungi in cereal crops.

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