Dear Colleagues,

Global food security is one of the greatest challenges faced by current humanity. In the era of diminishing resources, sustainable approaches for the intensification and protection of world agriculture are needed.  In addition to changing abiotic scenarios, studies have estimated that 20–40% loss in world food production is due to pests and diseases. Hence, improved crop protection from diseases is one of the most important strategies to increase global food production. Currently, crop disease management includes coordinated approaches, ranging from cultural practices, growing resistant varieties, chemical, and biological control methods. Farmers are adopting integrated disease management by using novel and alternate approaches. However, still there is a need for more and more research on our dependence on chemical control. The research in this direction will fulfill the societal need for durable sustainable means of managing plant diseases that would be less fungicide-dependent, ecologically safe, and socially acceptable.

New control strategies that could be integrated into current disease management can be evolved through a better understanding of the growth and behavior of plant pathogens. It can also include the identification of resistance genes from non-host crops and integrating them into popular varieties. Recently developed gene editing tools also can be part of multifaceted approaches to reducing the losses to plant pathogens. Additionally, the applications of nanotechnology in the agricultural sector have attracted considerable attention in detection and protection against plant pathogens. In this Special Issue, we will have the latest research and review articles on these and other novel methods of crop disease control.

Dr. M. Arun
Dr. Ramesh Namdeo Pudake
Guest Editors

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• plant disease
• management of plant pathogen
• biopesticides
• integrated disease management
• nano agrochemicals
• gene editing
• non-host resistance
• plant pathogen ecology