ABSTRACT
Since the recognition in the early 1900s that resistance to disease in plants is genetically inherited, breeding resistant cultivars has been a popular and intensively used approach for crop protection. It has many advantages over alternative approaches, both to the plant breeders, who can gain commercially by producing improved varieties with better resistance characteristics, for the grower who will have stable and uniform varieties that require fewer expensive alternative crop protection measures such as chemical interventions, and for the consumer who will have produce free of chemical residues and mycotoxins produced by infectious fungi. It is regarded as environmentally friendly crop management because of the reduced need for agrochemicals. However, if the presence of resistance is associated with a significant yield penalty, the cultivar may not be commercially viable.
