Disease Resistance In Fruit And Vegetables
There are a number of lines of defence against pests (that is, those animals that cause damage to the plants we grow) and diseases in the organic garden, principal among these being the practice of good husbandry, creating healthy soil and ensuring high standards of garden hygiene. But no matter how diverse and healthy the garden eco-system may be, there will always be a degree of disease and pest presence. In many ways, some level of pathogen population in the garden can be not only acceptable but desirable as they are indicative of a generally healthful and diverse environment, and add to the overall robustness of the system as an immunity to such detrimental influences will build up, particularly in a balanced polycultural regime. Indeed, most of the plants we grow will tend to be selected because they are trouble free, and those that are more susceptible to attack will have fallen by the wayside over time. However, most farmers find it unacceptable that the food crops they grow are damaged by pests.
For these crops there has been considerable research and selective breeding carried out in order to find cultivars that are resistant or immune to pest and disease damage. Breeding for plant disease resistance generally has involved finding suitable genetic material amongst existing stocks or in the wild, which is then incorporated into commercial varieties.
Read more about Disease Resistance In Fruit And Vegetables: Example: The Apple, Resistance and Immunity
Famous quotes containing the words disease, resistance, fruit and/or vegetables:
“Anti-Semitism is a horrible disease from which nobody is immune, and it has a kind of evil fascination that makes an enlightened person draw near the source of infection, supposedly in a scientific spirit, but really to sniff the vapors and dally with the possibility.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“It is not the first duty of the novelist to provide blueprints for insurrection, or uplifting tales of successful resistance for the benefit of the opposition. The naming of what is there is what is important.”
—Ian McEwan (b. 1938)
“It enhances our sense of the grand security and serenity of nature to observe the still undisturbed economy and content of the fishes of this century, their happiness a regular fruit of the summer.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A woman who writes feels too much,
those trances and portents!
As if cycles and children and islands
weren’t enough; as if mourners and gossips
and vegetables were never enough.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)