Plant Resistance to Cereal and Food Legume Insect pests in North Africa, West and Central Asia: Challenges and Achievements

Abstract

Even though host plant resistance has long been recognized as the foundation of integrated pest management, research in North Africa, West and Central Asia only started in 1980. The recent use of Focused Identification of Germplasm Strategy has increased the chance of finding sources of resistance to cereal and food legume pests. The resistant sources have been successfully used in breeding programs to develop resistant germplasm to key cereal and legume pests. The first major locus associated with resistance to Sunn pest at vegetative stage was identified in bread wheat as were two new loci for Hessian fly resistance from Triticum dicoccum and T. araraticum. Combined sources of resistance to several pests have been identified in alien translocation wheat lines.