Integrated use of fungicides and host resistance for stable disease control

For many crop diseases, stable control at desirable levels can be achieved only by using the two major control measures, fungicides and host resistance. Misuse of each method has often led to a loss in effectiveness and the need for expensive replacement chemicals and varieties. Much effort is now centred on the search for greater inherent durability of the control measures, and for methods of using them that will enhance their durability. Better progress might be made if fungicides and host resistance were to be used more as part of a single control system. This could provide greater efficiency and economy of disease control and overall strategies of deploying the components that would lessen the chances of selecting pathogen forms that could overcome them. To achieve these ends, some advantages of between-crop and within-crop heterogeneity of the control components are demonstrated.