The review focuses on the developments in the understanding of plant resistance mechanisms, the status of efforts to apply this knowledge to minimize crop losses, and new approaches to improving the ages-old practice of breeding for disease resistance.

Pivoting the Plant Immune System from Dissection to Deployment

Jeffery L. Dangl, Diana M. Horvath, and Brian J. Staskawicz

Abstract
Diverse and rapidly evolving pathogens cause plant diseases and epidemics that threaten crop yield and food security around the world. Research over the last 25 years has led to an increasingly clear conceptual understanding of the molecular components of the plant immune system. Combined with ever-cheaper DNA-sequencing technology and the rich diversity of germplasm manipulated for over a century by plant breeders, we now have the means to begin development of durable (long-lasting) disease resistance beyond the limits imposed by conventional breeding and in a manner that will replace costly and unsustainable chemical controls.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3869199/