Pesticide tolerance and crop production

Abstract

In the early twentieth century, various plant pathologists demonstrated the capability of plants to treat diverse contaminants from soil and water without any obvious mechanism. Conversely, the treatments of recalcitrant organic compounds generate incoherent consequences for biotreatment by plants because of varied recalcitrant compound structures from naturally occurring molecules. Several pesticides generally attack the target enzymes, which are normally inhibited; this may be due to overexpression or overstimulation of the target proteins. The enzymes of nontarget organisms and microbial enzymes can also be inhibited by a few pesticides. This makes the herbicide/pesticide tolerance a more intricate process connecting the profuse machinery of a plant. These include phytochromes, antioxidant machinery, glycoproteins, and the metabolic interface of various processes. Genetic heterogeneity of wild populations and weedy species growing on pesticide- contaminated soil provides a source of plant species tolerant to these conditions. In this section, we deal with various aspects of herbicide/pesticide resistance mechanisms found in plants. The herbicide resistance pathway in plants is affected by various components such as enzymes and heredity. In fact, some genes conferring tolerance to inconsequential effect might be amplified under herbicide selection, which exerts a corresponding effect on survival of HR plant species. This chapter provides insights into the main hurdles that could be raised as a result of increased pesticide tolerance to achieve increased crop production.