Perspectives for integrated insect pest protection in oilseed rape breeding

Abstract

In the past, breeding for incorporation of insect pest resistance or tolerance into cultivars for use in integrated pest management schemes in oilseed rape/canola (Brassica napus) production has hardly ever been approached. This has been largely due to the broad availability of insecticides and the complexity of dealing with high-throughput phenotyping of insect performance and plant damage parameters. However, recent changes in the political framework in many countries demand future sustainable crop protection which makes breeding approaches for crop protection as a measure for pest insect control attractive again. At the same time, new camera-based tracking technologies, new knowledge-based genomic technologies and new scientific insights into the ecology of insect-Brassica interactions are becoming available. Here we discuss and prioritise promising breeding strategies and direct and indirect breeding targets, and their time-perspective for future realisation in integrated insect pest protection of oilseed rape. In conclusion, researchers and oilseed rape breeders can nowadays benefit from an array of new technologies which in combination will accelerate the development of improved oilseed rape cultivars with multiple insect pest resistances/tolerances in the near future.

Fig. 1

Schematic representation of major breeding tools/strategies and breeding targets with time-perspective for future realisation and availability of insect resistant breeding lines in integrated insect pest protection of oilseed rape. Short-time perspective (5–15 years), medium-time perspective (15–25 years), long-time perspective (more than 25 years). Pictures are obtained from BioRender.com