History and Perspectives on the Use of Disease Resistance Inducers in Horticultural Crops

A major challenge facing horticultural crop production is the need to provide field and postharvest disease control measures that help maintain high quality plant products. Producers and consumers also expect high quality produce with minimal or no pesticide residues and competitive prices. The chemical management of disease is further complicated by the development of fungicide resistance in many important pathogens. Because of these concerns, an alternative or complementary approach is the use of disease resistance inducers that activate the natural defenses of the plant. Induced disease resistance in plants has been studied in many different pathosystems for nearly a century. Resistance to plant disease can be induced systemically by prior infection with pathogens, by certain non-pathogenic microbes that colonize the surface of roots and leaves, or by chemicals. The application of resistance inducers should protect plants through the induction of defenses that are effective against a broad spectrum of pathogens. Over the last few years, a number of materials that could potentially be used as inducers of resistance in horticultural crops have been identified. Some of these materials are already commercially available. Although induced resistance is known to provide a broad spectrum of disease suppression, it may not be a complete solution because variation in the efficacy of disease resistance induction has been observed. The variation in the response may be dependent on the plant species and even cultivars, as well as variability in the spectrum of pathogens that resistance can be induced against. Induction of resistance depends on the activation of biochemical processes that are triggered in the plant, and therefore a lag time between treatment and expression of resistance occurs. This lag effect may limit the practical application of disease resistance inducers. Since the efficacy of the inducers also depends on the part of the plant that was treated, the product delivery (i.e., how the inducers would be applied in order to optimize their action) is another factor to be considered. Some studies have shown that there may be side effects on growth or yield characteristics when certain inducers are used. Understanding the biochemical interactions occurring between plants, pathogens and the inducers will provide information that may be useful for the optimization of this new approach on disease control. Approaches to integrate induced resistance with other management practices need to be investigated as a means to aid the development of sustainable disease management programs that are effective as well as economically and environmentally sound.