Mosaics often outperform pyramids: insights from a model comparing strategies for the deployment of plant resistance genes against viruses in agricultural landscapes

What is it about?

The breakdown of plant virus resistance genes is a major issue in agriculture. Given a set of resistance genes, we compared the disease control achieved when (i) stacking these resistance genes in the same cultivar (pyramiding) or (ii) growing mosaics of cultivars bearing monogenic resistance (mosaic strategy). We show, using a theoretical modelling approach, that mosaics strategies are generally a more versatile means of achieving efficient disease control over many years than pyramiding strategies in most agricultural landscapes.

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