Author(s):

Gulzar S Sanghera and Arvind Kumar

Abstract: Sugarcane crop remains in field for 12-14 months and is attacked by a large number of insect pests including tissue borers, grasshoppers and termites and some sucking type belonging to fulgorids, coccids, aleurodids or acarina. Many morphological characters of plants have been found obstructing or completely restricting the entry, penetration and feeding of insects on some clones may be called direct resistance. Naturally occurring pest resistant traits in plants can be of either induced or constitutive resistance. Induced resistance requires the plant to recognize that there is an invader, which in turn results in the plant producing proteins or metabolites that are harmful to the invader. With induced resistance the plant detects the pest via at least one molecule produced by the pest. These bio-molecule(s) may be a protein, fatty acid derivative (fatty acid-amino acid conjugates), or other chemical compound secreted by the pest. Further, transgenic research in sugarcane concentrated on the development and evaluation of transgenic lines transformed for resistance to biotic stresses, particularly diseases and insect pests. The genetic complexity of sugarcane coupled with the non-availability of resistance genes in the germplasm has made conventional breeding for insect resistance difficult. In this review, attempt has been made explore different resistance/ defence mechanisms operating in plant system (physical and chemical), role of transgenic technology as handy tool for imparting insect resistance and use of Near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) as a rapid screening tool for pest resistance.

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