Can we breed for durable disease resistance in pea and faba bean? The cases of broomrapes and powdery mildews

Trabajo presentado en el 15th Congress of the Mediterranean Phytopathological Union (Plant health sistaining Mediterranean ecosystems), celebrado en Córdoba (España) del 20 al 23 de junio de 2017.Legume crops, such as pea and faba bean, can be damaged by a number of diseases, but insufficient levels of host resistance are available in most instances. As a result, only cultivars with moderate levels of resistance are available to farmers. Two important groups of diseases are caused by distinct groups of biotrophic pathogens: parasitic weeds (the broomrapes) and airborne fungi (the powdery mildews). Several clearly distinct species of these pathogens are known (the broomrapes Orobanche crenata, O. foetida and O. aegyptiaca; or the powdery mildews Erysiphe pisi and E. trifolii). These pathogens can infect the same legume crops. Historic and recent achievements are reviewed for pea and faba bean, and compared with those experienced in other non-legume crops. Implications in resistance breeding will be critically discussed, with a special focus on potential durability of host resistance.This research was supported by the Project AGL2014-52871-R.Peer reviewe