Plant breeders emphasize selection and development of disease-resistant plant lines. Plant diseases can also be partially controlled by use of pesticides and by cultivation practices such as crop rotation, tillage, planting density, disease-free seeds and cleaning of equipment, but plant varieties with inherent (genetically determined) disease resistance are generally preferred. Breeding for disease resistance began when plants were first domesticated. Breeding efforts continue because pathogen populations are under selection pressure and evolve increased virulence, pathogens move (or are moved) to new areas, changing cultivation practices or climate favor some pathogens and can reduce resistance efficacy, and plant breeding for other traits can disrupt prior resistance. A plant line with acceptable resistance against one pathogen may lack resistance against others.
Breeding for resistance typically includes:
* Identification of plants that may be less desirable in other ways, but which carry a useful disease resistance trait, including wild plant lines that often express enhanced resistance.
* Crossing of a desirable but disease-susceptible variety to a plant that is a source of resistance.
* Growth of breeding candidates in a disease-conducive setting, possibly including pathogen inoculation. Attention must be paid to the specific pathogen isolates, to address variability within a single pathogen species.
* Selection of disease-resistant individuals that retain other desirable traits such as yield, quality and including other disease resistance traits.
Resistance is termed durable if it continues to be effective over multiple years of widespread use as pathogen populations evolve. "Vertical resistance" is specific to certain races or strains of a pathogen species, is often controlled by single R genes and can be less durable. Horizontal or broad-spectrum resistance against an entire pathogen species is often only incompletely effective, but more durable, and is often controlled by many genes that segregate in breeding populations. Durability of resistance is important even when future improved varieties are expected to be on the way: The average time from human recognition of a new fungal disease threat to the release of a resistant crop for that pathogen is at least twelve years.
Crops such as potato, apple, banana and sugarcane are often propagated by vegetative reproduction to preserve highly desirable plant varieties, because for these species, outcrossing seriously disrupts the preferred traits. See also asexual propagation. Vegetatively propagated crops may be among the best targets for resistance improvement by the biotechnology method of plant transformation to manage genes that affect disease resistance.
Scientific breeding for disease resistance originated with Sir Rowland Biffen, who identified a single recessive gene for resistance to wheat yellow rust. Nearly every crop was then bred to include disease resistance (R) genes, many by introgression from compatible wild relatives.