Using Host Resistance to Manage Potato Late Blight with Particular Reference to Developing Countries

Potato late blight may be controlled by several approaches including host resistance. Unfortunately, efforts to date to use host resistance have led to limited successes and many failures as pathogen populations have rapidly evolved to overcome resistance or durably resistant varieties have had limited adoption. Several problems hinder diffusion of resistant cultivars, including a rapidly evolving pathogen population, market preferences, association of resistance with late maturation, and methodological issues such as inaccurate phenotyping and insufficient communication among researchers, the latter particularly in developing countries. New technologies and approaches that improve the identification and adoption of resistant varieties are discussed, including biotechnology, enhanced conventional breeding, pathogen monitoring, improved phenotyping, and better research collaboration.