Biotechnology for control of Plant Parasitic Nematodes

Plant parasitic nematodes are amongst the most economically important groups of pathogens. The use of resistant cultivar, crop rotation, chemical control, antagonistic organisms and biocontrol agents are the principal methods for management of the nematodes. Natural nematode resistance genes present in gene pools of crop species and their relatives have been used with the aim of transferring such traits into economically important plants where effective resistance is lacking. Biotechnology contributes to this process via marker-assisted selection to identify the best nematode resistance genes, and increasingly in providing new knowledge of target genes, and the potential to exploit this knowledge using transgenic technology. Thus recent advances make it possible to exploit specific aspects of nematode-host plant interactions to design control strategies that include enabling plants to prevent nematode invasion, migration through tissues and reducing feeding ability or nematode fecundity. Application of RNAi, new biotechnology-based chemical nematicides and some other methods are amongst the modern strategies of control. New traits would be added to existing crop genotypes with the best conventional or natural nematode resistance to increase the effectiveness and durability of the nematode resistance trait. Biotech trait expression could also be limited to roots to minimize expression in harvested parts.