Are stomatal responses the key to understanding the cost of fungal disease resistance in plants?

Preventing disease in cereal crops is important for maintaining productivity and as the availability and efficacy of chemical control becomes reduced the emphasis on breeding for disease resistance increases. However, there is evidence that disease resistance may be physiologically costly to the plant and we ask if understanding stomatal responses to fungal attack is the key to minimising reductions in growth associated with disease resistance. Copyright © 2011 Society of Chemical Industry