About this Research Topic

Background

Plant diseases caused by many air-born, soil born or waterborne microorganisms, are a major constraint to yield and crop productivity. Development of disease-resistant varieties is one of the key targets for plant breeding programs. Similar to other crops, legumes are susceptible to many pathogens (fungi, bacteria, viruses) as well as insects and pests. Major diseases of legumes include rusts, powdery and downy mildews, ascochyta blights, botrytis grey molds, anthracnoses, root rots, collar rots, and wilts. Parasitic weeds, viruses, bacteria, nematodes, and damages caused by chewing and sap-sucking insects add to this long list of constraints for legume production. Exploration of the underlying genetics and host-pathogen interaction mechanisms are of vital importance for accurate characterization of germplasm. Utilization of different screening tools such as phenomic methods, molecular and genomics tools as well as functional characterization can help to unravel complex genetic mechanisms involved in disease resistance.

Disease and pest management on-farm can be highly challenging especially when conditions are favorable for the onset of pathogens and spread of pests. A number of control strategies have been developed including resistance breeding, cultural practices, and chemical control. However, not much success has been achieved to minimize yield losses. Therefore, efforts to decipher genomic, physiological, and agronomic responses are crucial to contribute novel strategies to aid disease and pest resistance in legumes. Utilization of crop wild relatives can also pave the way towards identifying novel alleles and enriching the breeding germplasm through intercrossing and backcrossing strategies. High throughput field phenotyping can be another way to select for disease and pest resistance more accurately. Deployment of new genomic technologies can help to identify and characterize genes involved in resistance and enable their functional characterization.

This Research Topic is focused on including the latest advances dealing with legume responses to diseases and pests. Increasing the knowledge of underlying host-pathogen interactions, germplasm characterization using modern genomics and phenomics tools, and implementation of novel approaches for disease and pest resistance in legumes can be used in crop improvement. Areas to be covered in this Research Topic may include, but are not limited to:

- High throughput genotyping and phenotyping approaches leading to precise identification of resistant germplasm

- Deployment of genomics assisted breeding approaches towards for development of superior varieties with improved levels of disease and pest resistance

- Utilization of plant genetic resources crop wild relatives, exotic lines, and landraces for successful introgression of novel alleles with improved disease and pest resistance

- Development and deployment of experimental populations towards understanding the basic mechanisms of disease resistance i.e. QTL mapping, association studies, genomic selection approaches

Please note that descriptive studies and those defining gene families or descriptive collection of transcripts, proteins, or metabolites, will not be considered for review unless they are expanded and provide mechanistic and/or physiological insights into the biological system or process being studied.

Keywords: Disease Resistance, Pest Resistance, Association Studies, Genomic selection, Crop Management Strategies, Germplasm Characterization, Crop Wild Relatives

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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