DEVELOPMENT OF PEST-RESISTANT BRASSICA VEGETABLES

摘要

Tissue culture and gene transfer approaches can contribute to development of cabbage and other Brassica vegetables with improved resistance to diseases and pests. Work in my laboratory has produced material useful to plant breeders and to decisions about how best to deploy insect-resistant transgenic crops. Two types of examples will be presented. Blackrot, caused by the bacterium Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris, is one of the most serious diseases of Brassica vegetables. We have used the cellculture technique of protoplast fusion, followed by sexual crosses, to obtain broccoli lines with stable high resistance to blackrot. The source of the resistance was Brassica carinata, an Ethiopian mustard that is difficult or impossible to cross sexually with B. oleracea.