Resisting resistance: new applications for molecular diagnostics in crop protection

Abstract

While there is universal recognition of the dangers of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to human health, far less attention has been directed towards the steady growth of resistance to the pesticides and herbicides that safeguard global food security. As a major constraint on crop productivity, weed competition causes greater losses than invertebrate pests and fungal pathogens combined, with the development of herbicide resistance now a primary agronomic threat to arable agriculture and horticulture. Here in the UK, our dominant crop, winter wheat, is now subject to annual losses of 1 million tons of grain equating to an estimated £0.5 billion, primarily due to the mass evolution of herbicide resistance in the highly competitive weed blackgrass (Alopecurus myosuroides). Informed by strategies being developed in healthcare to combat AMR through its rapid identification, we now look to new tools to combat herbicide and pesticide resistance informed by molecular diagnostics.