Mbinda Wilton, Masaki Hosea
Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, Pwani University, Kilifi, Kenya.
Pwani University Biosciences Research Centre (PUBReC), Pwani University, Kilifi, Kenya.
Front Plant Sci. 2021 Jan 8;11:602882. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2020.602882. eCollection 2020.
Climate change has significantly altered the biodiversity of crop pests and pathogens, posing a major challenge to sustainable crop production. At the same time, with the increasing global population, there is growing pressure on plant breeders to secure the projected food demand by improving the prevailing yield of major food crops. Finger millet is an important cereal crop in southern Asia and eastern Africa, with excellent nutraceutical properties, long storage period, and a unique ability to grow under arid and semi-arid environmental conditions. Finger millet blast disease caused by the filamentous ascomycetous fungus Magnaporthe oryzae is the most devastating disease affecting the growth and yield of this crop in all its growing regions. The frequent breakdown of blast resistance because of the susceptibility to rapidly evolving virulent genes of the pathogen causes yield instability in all finger millet-growing areas. The deployment of novel and efficient strategies that provide dynamic and durable resistance against many biotypes of the pathogen and across a wide range of agro-ecological zones guarantees future sustainable production of finger millet. Here, we analyze the breeding strategies currently being used for improving resistance to disease and discuss potential future directions toward the development of new blast-resistant finger millet varieties, providing a comprehensive understanding of promising concepts for finger millet breeding. The review also includes empirical examples of how advanced molecular tools have been used in breeding durably blast-resistant cultivars. The techniques highlighted are cost-effective high-throughput methods that strongly reduce the generation cycle and accelerate both breeding and research programs, providing an alternative to conventional breeding methods for rapid introgression of disease resistance genes into favorable, susceptible cultivars. New information and knowledge gathered here will undoubtedly offer new insights into sustainable finger millet disease control and efficient optimization of the crop's productivity.
气候变化已显著改变了作物害虫和病原体的生物多样性，给作物可持续生产带来了重大挑战。与此同时，随着全球人口的增加，植物育种者面临着越来越大的压力，需要通过提高主要粮食作物的现有产量来确保预计的粮食需求。龙爪稷是亚洲南部和非洲东部的一种重要谷类作物，具有优良的营养特性、较长的储存期，以及在干旱和半干旱环境条件下生长的独特能力。由丝状子囊菌稻瘟病菌引起的龙爪稷稻瘟病是影响该作物在所有种植地区生长和产量的最具破坏性的病害。由于对病原体快速进化的毒性基因敏感，稻瘟病抗性频繁失效，导致所有龙爪稷种植地区的产量不稳定。部署能够对病原体的多种生物型并在广泛的农业生态区域提供动态和持久抗性的新颖高效策略，是未来龙爪稷可持续生产的保障。在此，我们分析了目前用于提高抗病性的育种策略，并讨论了未来开发新的抗稻瘟病龙爪稷品种的潜在方向，全面了解龙爪稷育种的有前景的概念。该综述还包括了先进分子工具如何用于培育持久抗稻瘟病品种的实证例子。所强调的技术是具有成本效益的高通量方法，能大大缩短世代周期，加速育种和研究计划，为将抗病基因快速导入优良的感病品种提供了一种替代传统育种方法的途径。这里收集的新信息和知识无疑将为龙爪稷病害的可持续控制和作物生产力的有效优化提供新的见解。
