Epidemiology and Control of Fungal Diseases in Crop Plants

Abstract

Crop fungal diseases are a major threat to crop health and food security worldwide. The epidemiology is the basis for effective and sustainable control of crop fungal diseases. Safe, effective, sustainable, and eco-friendly disease control measures have important economic, ecological, and social significances. This Special Issue, “Epidemiology and Control of Fungal Diseases of Crop Plants”, collected one communication and nine original research articles focusing on the identification and detection of the causal agents of alfalfa Fusarium root rot, strawberry black spot, and barley leaf stripe; the semantic segmentation of wheat stripe rust images; the image-based identification of wheat stripe rust and wheat leaf rust; the image-based identification of the severity of wheat Fusarium head blight; the development process of vanilla Fusarium wilt; the regional migration of wheat leaf rust pathogen; the early prediction of potato early blight; the screening of alternative fungicides for the control of alfalfa Fusarium root rot; and the biocontrol potential of endophytic fungi to control of cumin root rot, presenting the progress of research on the epidemiology and control of crop fungal diseases. The studies contained in this Special Issue facilitated the development of epidemiology of the related crop fungal diseases and provided some basis for control of the diseases, which is conducive to the sustainable management of these diseases.

Slime molds (Myxomycetes) causing a “disease” in crop plants and cultivated mushrooms

“…Over the past few decades, people-crop plant studies have increasingly focused on empirically demonstrating relationships between crop plants and health ( Grandin, 2022 ). There is a vast array of diseases in the natural environment of crop plants, such as fungal diseases ( Ceasar and Ignacimuthu, 2012 ; Wang, 2023 ), bacterial diseases ( Hikichi, 2016 ; Li et al., 2023 ), viral diseases ( Bhat et al., 2022 ; Zhang et al., 2022 ), and nematode-caused diseases ( Kaloshian and Teixeira, 2019 ; Bhat et al., 2023 ). These crop plant diseases constitute a huge economic and environmental threat to agricultural and forestry production.…”