New Horizons in Insect Science Towards Sustainable Pest Management

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Abstract

Exploitation of host plant resistance (HPR) against insect pests has gained

greater importance in intensive agriculture since the days of Reginald

H. Painter. In spite of the initial euphoria mentioning few success stories,

currently it warrants for introspection and redesigning of research strate-

gies in developing insect tolerant/resistant crop cultivars. Conventional

tools of resistance breeding, though successful, have lost its legacy be-

cause of temporal, manpower, and cost considerations. The declined out-

put in terms of research publications or pest resilient crop cultivars stands

testimony to the dwindling number of entomologists and breeders con-

centrating on such conventional tools. Many of the novel molecular ap-

proaches such as marker aided selection, mapping QTL have gained much

prominence and few successful outputs are being popularized. Though

many preliminary laboratory reports on molecular techniques in HPR

are widely surfacing, their field success is less validated. The success of

pest resilient cultivars depends on various factors including preference

by growers based on better yield and economic parameters and in turn

preference by consumers based on organoleptic characters. The sustained

use of genetically modified crops is still suspected and debated. Further,

the consumerist enigma attached to its wider adoption needs to be rusti-

cated through ostensible safety studies. Our two decade-long experience

in exploiting the resistant traits in a huge germplasm of tomato has given

a far insight into the trends that were followed earlier, failures faced in

developing insect tolerant cultivars and the conceptual changes visualized

for the future, which are highlighted in this chapter.

Redesigning Research on Crop

Resistance to Insects: Experiences

with Tomato

V. Selvanarayanan

A. K. Chakravarthy (ed.), New Horizons in Insect Science: Towards Sustainable Pest Management,

DOI 10.1007/978-81-322-2089-3_27, © Springer India 2015

V. Selvanarayanan ()
Department of Entomology, Faculty of Agriculture,
Annamalai University, Annamalai Nagar, Cuddalore
District, Tamil Nadu 608002, India
e-mail: [email protected]

Keywords

Breeding · Insect Pests · Resistance · To m a t o