D36—Lancaster Fainting, Saturday, April 14,1984
Plant
UNIVERSITY PARK - Plant
scientists at Penn State have found
ways to manage genes to solve
some of the age-old problems of
protecting crops from diseases. By
combining genes into groups, the
single genes complement each
other in a process called “gene
management.”
Experiments by Richard R.
Nelson and associates in plant
pathology use a disease model to
evaluate the best strategies for
combining genes. Their work is
becoming a "breakthrough” in
strengthening the diseases
resistance of plants.
Nelson is Evan Pugh Professor
of Plant Pathology at Penn State.
The Evan Pugh designation honors
a small group of Penn State faculty
members for distinguished
achievements in research and
teaching.
Nelson claims widespread ef-
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gene management helps control disease
forts *o control plant diseases with
single <.i'nes, while often dramatic
at first, nave taken many plant
hosts and the’" parasites out of
balance at a catastrophic cost. As
an example he listed the rice blast
disease which creates worldwide
devastation.
“Historically, natural
populations of plants and their
parasites have learned to live
together over time,” Nelson
stated, “Plants and parasites
attained their ability to co-exist
together by each accumulating a
number of genes for their own
defense. This developed
throughout a long co-evolution.
Mutual safety and survivial were
due to number of genes.”
Plant varieties with single gene
resistance to disease, developed
widely today, present a “feast or
famine” approach, he observed. In
the “gene management” process,
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on the other hand, a disease can
increase at a slow rate
producing less losses than
iriierwise a'lfl keeping diseases at
tolerable levels.
Nelson and associates are now
combining genes in ways
previously untested. While
studying the powdery mildew
disease of wheat, they found that
disease resistance known as race
specific and race-non-specific are
both determined by the same
genes. The discovery makes it
possible to use more combinations
of the race-specific genes in
breeding programs.
One immediate practical ap
plication of this information will be
to control rice blast. The disease is
so destructive that rice grown in
much of the tropical world must be
sprayed weekly with fungicides or
the crop will die.
“Major areas of Africa and
South America could now be
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growing rice were it not for rice
blast,” Nelson said. “The casual
fungus is so genetically explosive
that the usefulness of a rice variety
lasting more than two years is
considered unique.”
The Penn Staters are now
working with scientists of the
International Center fot - Tropical
Agriculture in Cali, Colombia,
South America. The project is
reorganizing breeding strategies
to enable genes to resist rice blast.
The project was financed for a
number of years by the
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Benefits for American farmers
will come from this new discovery,
it was pointed out, as plant
breeders begin to conserve genes
for use in combinations instead of
discarding them out of frustration.
“Plant breeders may soon be in
a position to manage many of the
classic diseases of major food
crops,” Nelson commented. “This
will reduce greatly our dependence
on fungicides and the prospect of
famine.”
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