Sustainable management of plant resistance to viruses
Résumé
Although viruses are among the parasites which induce the most severe damages on cultivated plants, few control methods have been developed against them. Notably, no curative methods can be applied against virus diseases in crops. In view of this major economic problem, the development of resistant cultivars has become a critical factor of competitiveness for breeders. However, plant – virus interactions are highly dynamic and the selective pressure exerted by plant resistance frequently favours the emergence of adapted virus populations. Given the scarcity of resistance genes, there is consequently an urgent need to increase the sustainability of these genetic resources. In this chapter, we will review the biological mechanisms which allow the emergence of virus populations adapted to plant resistances and how we can use this knowledge to explain the relative durability of different resistance genes, to built predictors of resistance durability and to combine the use of resistances with other control methods to increase their sustainability.