Host Plant Resistance to Insect Pests in Maize

Maize, a potential global crop is attacked by a wide array of insect pests. Among them, spotted stem borer, pink stem borer, fall armyworm, and shoot fly are the major insect pests affecting maize productivity. Significant yield losses and environmental concerns necessitated the need to develop potential and safe management strategies against insect pests. Maize genotypes with improved insect pest resistance help in minimizing yield losses. Adoption of host plant resistance-based approaches not only sustains maize production in long run but is also environmentally friendly. Exploration of wild relatives in breeding programs increases the genetic diversity and sources of resistance to key insect pests. Conventional breeding in combination with molecular techniques speeds up the progress in developing insect pest-resistant genotypes. Understanding plant–insect interactions and elucidation of the molecular regulation of signaling networks is important for formulating novel pest control strategies. Various phytohormones such as jasmonic acid (JA) and salicylic acid (SA) and their derivatives, elicitors present in the saliva/oral secretions/regurgitant/frass of herbivores play an important role in modulating plant defenses. In this chapter, host plant resistance-based approaches including screening techniques, identification, and utilization of resistant sources, mechanisms and factors associated with plant resistance, induced defenses, the role of the microbiome in insect pest management, novel breeding strategies, namely quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping, genetic engineering, genome editing to develop insect-resistant maize genotypes are discussed.