Towards establishing broad-spectrum disease resistance in plants: Silicon leads the way
After just adding an excellent article on water and salinity stress, this review keeps piling on the benefits. Our latest addition to our agricultural research database focuses on disease resistance benefits and has a fair bit of detail that can be numbing for most. But there are some nice digestible gems quoted below:
“Silicon application is one of the scarce examples of a treatment that effectively induces broad-spectrum disease resistance. The prophylactic effect of silicon is considered to be the result of both passive and active defences”
“…the observation that all prophylactic effects are lost within a short period of time after silicon feeding is interrupted clearly suggests that the role of silicon as a modulator of basal defence responses is dominant over its function as a mechanical barrier.”
This statement is an interesting evaluation of the immune response benefits as being of greater value for disease resistance than the mechanical barrier benefits.
And in conclusion:
“Although many treatments are reported to induce resistance against plant pathogens, there are very few strategies that induce broad-spectrum disease resistance without trade-offs. Silicon is one of the only exceptions, rendering plants more resistant towards a wide range of abiotic and biotic stresses. The prophylactic role of silicon is the result of both passive and active effects.”
Full article: Towards establishing broad-spectrum disease resistance in plants- silicon leads the way.pdf
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Thanks for reading!