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The absence of real cures against the viral diseases aphids transmit to crop plants has motivated a search for varieties resistant to the viruses causing the diseases or to their aphid vectors.

Commercial varieties of melon for example possess the Vat gene which confers a resistance to the cotton aphid (Aphis gossypii), a pest of many crop-plant families.

However, large-scale adoption of resistant varieties ends up with a selection process favouring aphid populations able to live and develop on them. Rapid generation has thus been seen of populations of Aphis gossypii capable of developing on resistant varieties of melon.