Fungicide Resistance: Practical Experience with Antiresistance Strategies and the Role of Integrated Use

Abstract

Early reviews on fungicide resistance and measures to overcome it generally referred to the newness of the resistance problem and to the consequent lack of experience to deal with it. I believe that those days are over and that there is now a considerable body of experience on assessing resistance risk and designing and implementing measures to counter it. Furthermore, for the plant protection community, the occurrence of resistant strains no longer triggers panic reactions or alarmist publications but rather rational appraisals based on monitoring data and, if necessary, changes in the recommendations for use of the particular fungicides. Attitudes toward fungicide resistance in the 1970s were rather naive whereas in the 1980s the plant protection commu­ nity has tried to face the subject more pragmatically. A concerted effort has been made to meet the challenge of fungicide resistance and numerous workshops have been organized to keep members abreast with experience (12, 16). In industry analysis of the resistance risk and the design of measures to control it have become routine in fungicide development. Several reviews have described attempts to meet the challenge of fungicide resistance with innovative use strategies (12, 13, 24, 34, 59, 62). Such strategies are largely addressed to the use of resistance-prone fungicides in mixture or in alternation with fungicides from other cross-resistance groups or