Pathogen Resistant Crops
Pathogen resistant crops, also known as disease resistant crops, are genetically modified to fight issues such as fungal or viral infections. These plants are given genes that can secrete defensive enzymes, or producing protective proteins. By defending themselves against diseases, pathogen resistant crops do not require chemicals like some other types of genetically modified crops.
What Are They?
Fungi and viruses can affect crops by reducing their yield or killing the plant altogether. However, pathogen resistance in crops allows them to survive with very little penalty, giving profit in the increased yield with less crop loss. Being one of the most common type of genetically modified crops, pathogen resistant crops are effective in their duty of protecting the plant from diseases.
Complications
There are minimal complications involved with pathogen resistant crops as they do their job very well. However, they have limited usage as they only protect against diseases and not other variables such as insects or herbicides. This makes them less effective than some other crops, since pathogens may not be as much of a threat as say herbicides.
Without pathogen resistance, plants can be susceptible to fungal infections. (Image Citation 34)
