Biological Control Strategies of Plant Pathogens

Abstract

Food security has become a major concern worldwide in recent years due to ever increasing population. Providing food for the growing billions without disturbing environmental balance is incessantly required in the current scenario. In view of this, sustainable modes of agricultural practices offer better promise and hence are gaining prominence recently. Moreover, these methods have taken precedence currently over chemical-based methods of pest restriction and pathogen control. Adoption of Biological Control is one such crucial technique that is currently in the forefront. Over a period of time, various biocontrol strategies have been experimented with and some have exhibited great success and promise. This review highlights the different methods of plant-pathogen control, types of plant pathogens, their modus operandi and various biocontrol approaches employing a range of microorganisms and their byproducts. The study lays emphasis on the use of upcoming methodologies like microbiome management and engineering, phage cocktails, genetically modified biocontrol agents and microbial volatilome as available strategies to sustainable agricultural practices. More importantly, a critical analysis of the various methods enumerated in the paper indicates the need to amalgamate these techniques in order to improve the degree of biocontrol offered by them.

Comparative analysis of the microbiomes of strawberry wild species Fragaria nilgerrensis and cultivated variety Akihime using amplicon-based next-generation sequencing

“…A similar phenomenon was observed in strawberries. The relative abundances of potential fungal pathogens including Fusarium (Frąc et al, 2018;Gwinn et al, 2022), Botrytis (Drobek et al, 2021;Pandit et al, 2022), Rhizoctonia (Frąc et al, 2018;Pandit et al, 2022), Dactylonectria (Su et al, 2022), Cadophora (Travadon et al, 2015), Neopestalotiopsis (Darapanit et al, 2021), and Colletotrichum (Drobek et al, 2021;Sangiorgio et al, 2022) were significantly higher in the rhizosphere soil and root endosphere samples of Akihime than those of F. nilgerrensis (Figure 5). At the same time, a variety of fungal pathogen taxa were detected in the samples of Akihime with higher relative abundances than F. nilgerrensis, especially in the root endosphere samples.…”

“…In addition, the Rhodococcus fascians taxa (APS), which can cause strawberry cauliflower disease, was detected in the rhizosphere soil and root endosphere samples of Akihime (data not shown). At the genus level, the relative abundances of potential fungal pathogens in the genera including Fusarium (Gwinn et al, 2022), Botrytis (Drobek et al, 2021), Rhizoctonia (Frąc et al, 2018;Pandit et al, 2022), Dactylonectria (Su et al, 2022), Neopestalotiopsis (Darapanit et al, 2021), Colletotrichum (Sangiorgio et al, 2022), and Cadophora (Travadon et al, 2015) were different between the F. nilgerrensis and Akihime samples (Figure 5). For the rhizosphere soil samples, the relative abundances of Fusarium, Botrytis, Neopestalotiopsis, Cadophora in F. nilgerrensis samples was significantly higher than those in Akihime samples (p < 0.05) (Figure 5D).…”

The potential of facultative predatory Actinomycetota spp. and prospects in agricultural sustainability

“…In addition, the extensive use of agrochemicals molecules has led to the development of bacterial resistance, causing significant risks to the environment and human health (Ebele Mbachu et al, 2022). Consequently, providing food for the world's population without disrupting the environmental balance is becoming eminent (Pandit et al, 2022). It is highly recommended to provide sustainable solutions for agriculture (Jamiołkowska, 2020).…”