Plant vaccines could secure global food supplies and beat climate hazards

Induced resistance triggers a plant’s immune system

Induced resistance of plants could help the agriculture industry overcome problems caused by climate change. Getty Images

Vaccinations for plants could help the agriculture industry beat climate change challenges and provide healthier food, scientists argued on Tuesday.

Researchers writing in Frontiers in Science said induced resistance could prepare plants to fight pests and disease, and help build a sustainable and resilient agricultural system.

Induced resistance is a way of deliberately triggering a plant’s immune system, so that when the plant encounters similar stresses in the future, it fights back better. In some cases, the plant also passes its defence mechanisms on to the next generation.

“While induced resistance has been studied for decades, its exploitation in crop protection has only recently begun to gain momentum,” said lead author Prof Brigitte Mauch-Mani of the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland.

“We argue in favour of a holistic approach to crop protection, which combines multiple strategies to deliver tailored solutions. Induced resistance sits in the heart of such an integrated approach.”

Pesticides have enabled mass cultivation but there are also harmful effects on people and wildlife, and pests are rapidly evolving, the scientists said.

Induced resistance could help plants overcome problems from climate change and in some cases help provide healthier food, they added.

One of the best-known induced resistance methods is defence priming – when a plant experiences stress on a small scale – only for the relevant defence mechanism to then appear in the next generation.

Some of the defence compounds that plants produce during induced resistance are linked to health benefits or higher-quality nutrition, meaning people could benefit from eating healthier food, the researchers said.

They added that induced resistance was faster than traditional breeding and offered a way to adapt to changing climatic conditions.

Prof Mauch-Mani said: “Safe and efficient exploitation of induced resistance is not as straightforward as the introgression of a single gene or spraying a single pesticide.

“We will need case-by-case evaluation of the optimal growth conditions, crop germplasm and agricultural practices to capitalise on induced resistance’s multifaceted benefits.”

The team also said induced resistance usually does not offer complete protection and must be combined with other measures. It also needs to be carefully calibrated to ensure that it does not leave a plant open to other threats.

Urgent research was called for to further investigate induced resistance.