The world population is expected to reach 9.7 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100 (United Nations, 2017). Increases in crop yields are not keeping pace with the growing demand. Global demand for agricultural products is projected to grow by 15 percent over the coming decade (OECD/FAO, 2019). However, crop losses caused by plant diseases and pests add great weight to this food challenge. According to recent research, at a global scale, the estimated range of crop losses caused by pathogens and pests are 10.1%–28.1% in wheat, 24.6%–40.9% in rice, 19.5%–41.1% in maize, 8.1%–21.0% in potato, and 11.0%–32.4% in soybean, among which, more than half are caused by diseases (Savary et al., 2019). Application of chemical pesticides has greatly reduced these losses but causes hazardous risks to human health and environment (Damalas and Eleftherohorinos, 2011). Cultural practices such as removal of tillage, crop rotation, and polycultures can reduce disease outbreaks (Garrett and Mundt, 2000; Zhu et al., 2000), but these practices are not always applicable when arable land is limited. Thus, breeding crops with genetic resistance is unarguably the most effective and sustainable approach to control plant diseases.

Recent advances in molecular mechanism underlying plant-pathogen interactions and advances in biotechnology are providing powerful theoretical and technological support for breeding crops with disease resistance genetically. Readers are referred to several reviews for detailed advances in plant immunity (Wang and Chai 2020; Zhou and Zhang, 2020; Yuan et al., 2021b; Ngou et al., 2022; Wang et al., 2022). We also recommend recent reviews on genetic engineering of disease resistance crop plants (Van Esse et al., 2020; Frailie and Innes, 2021; Liu et al., 2021a).This review summarizes basic principles of plant immunity, molecular basis of durable resistance, and discusses how to apply these knowledge to improve disease resistance in crop plants.