Abstract

Commercially available potato (Solanum tuberosum) cultivars are highly susceptible to root-knot (Meloidogyne species) nematodes, without known genotype with resistance to the genus. This review shall provide an overview on some reasons where using nematode resistance technologies in crop rotations intended to manage nematode population densities results in inconsistent outcomes. The latter is primarily due to the existence of survival strategies in nematode stages and the existence of pre-and post-infectional nematode resistance mechanisms with different capabilities for reducing nematode population densities. Generally, plants with pre-infectional nematode resistance do not allow nematode juveniles to penetrate the root systems, but exude chemicals into the rhizosphere, which repel nematodes, with many entering cryptobiosis as a survival strategy. In contrast, in post-infectional nematode resistance, juveniles penetrate the root system, thereby triggering nematode resistance chemicals, which trap and kill nematodes. Between the two, post-infectional nematode resistance mechanism is well-suited for reducing nematode population densities from the soil for the successful production of nematode susceptible potato cultivars as successor crops in crop rotation systems.