Biological control of plant diseases - What has been achieved and what is the direction?

Abstract

The global sustainability agenda is increasing the demand for reduction in inputs into agricultural production while maintaining profitable yield of quality products. Plant diseases are a major constraint for both yield and product quality, but often tools for their control are ineffective or lacking. Biological control using antagonistic microorganisms has long been a subject of research resulting in a wide range of products that are now available and marketed in specific territories around the world. These preparations are often niche products with narrow uses. The research effort is intense both to develop new biological control agents (BCAs) and to obtain knowledge of the mechanisms underlying biological disease control. The prospects for biological control are promising. As a minimum, BCAs supplement other sustainable disease management practices such as disease resistance, and present opportunities for controlling diseases for which other approaches are ineffective or unavailable. We can realistically expect increasing use of BCAs to control crop diseases in ways that will benefit the environment. This review paper arose from a webinar held by the British Society for Plant Pathology as part of the International Year of Plant Heath (IYPH2020), at which many of the 300 participants posed or discussed interesting questions. This review is based on that input and the panel members at the webinar are all included as co-authors in this review.

Keywords

plant diseases; plant pathology; sustainable disease control; virus

Published in

Plant Pathology
2022, volume: 71, number: 5, pages: 1024-1047
Publisher: WILEY

SLU Authors

• Jensen, Dan Funck

  • Department of Forest Mycology and Plant Pathology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Associated SLU-program

SLU Plant Protection Network

Global goals (SDG)

SDG12 Responsible consumption and production

UKÄ Subject classification

Agricultural Science

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/ppa.13555

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/116722