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New Insights into Pathogen, Insect Pest, and Weed Control in Field and Greenhouse Cropping Systems—2nd Edition

A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Pest and Disease Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 August 2025 | Viewed by 14531

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Hideyoshi Toyoda

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. President of Research Association of Electric Field Screen Supporters, Nara 631-8505, Japan
2. Department of Agricultural Science, Kindai University, Nara 631-8505, Japan
Interests: electrostatic engineering for pest control; quantitative sporulation analysis for fungal phytopathogens; behavior analysis of insect pests; physical and biological methodologies for pest control
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Following the success of the first Special Issue, entitled “New Insights into Pathogen, Insect Pest, and Weed Control in Field and Greenhouse Cropping Systems” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/agronomy/special_issues/TS29410019), in Agronomy, we are pleased to announce the launch of a second edition of the Issue.

The chemical-independent cropping approach in agriculture is a new research trend that has emerged due to persistent public concerns regarding pesticide residues contaminating food and the environment, as well as the scientific perspective of the reduced emergence of pesticide-resistant strains in all classes, including pathogens, insect pests, and weeds. Physical and biological approaches are important chemical alternatives addressed in this Special Issue. For the development of new physical methods of pest control, improved knowledge regarding electrostatics has provided an academic basis for creating innovative tools for the management of various pests. The devised tools consist of apparatuses that generate an electric field in the space surrounding negative or positive charges accumulated on an electric conductor. Based on the specific target, two types of apparatuses have been constructed that utilize suitable electrostatic characteristics. In the first type, the surface charge on an insulated charged conductor imparts an attractive force to another electric charge in the electric field. Using this phenomenon, electrostatic traps have been devised for airborne spores, plant pollen, and flying insect pests. In the second type, the electric charge on a non-insulated charged conductor causes an arc (spark) discharge exposure that then exterminates targets in the electric field or forcibly repels the targets outside. The most important shared feature of these types of apparatuses is a simple structure that can be fabricated and modified inexpensively by ordinary workers using common materials.　Hydrothermal and solar heating treatments of soil are another option with which to physically manage soil-resident pathogens, insect pests, and weed seeds through a soil sterilization procedure, which could be an eco-friendly method with the improved application of economic instruments. Colored films or nets, which absorb or reflect light of specific wavelengths, and specific light-emitting illuminators such as LED lights are the most familiar usable apparatuses to attract phototactic insect pests or confuse their behavior in terms of host attacking. The biological approach involves biocontrol methods and genetic breeding techniques for protecting crops from pathogens and insect pests. Biocontrol is a method involving applying microbial agents to plants in order to antagonize their pathogens and insect pests. Despite a long history of applications, there are some problems to be clarified, especially the elucidation of antagonistic mechanisms. The reliable method for successfully activating antagonists for long periods of time is a long-awaited theme in this Special Issue. The identification of resistance traits in plants and the elucidation of their expression mechanisms are the most important bases for constructing the resistance breeding program in many crop plants that may be resistant to pest attacks. At the same time, pathogenicity-related genes in pathogens that co-evolve through host and pathogen interactions are the related targets to be considered for successfully constructing an effective crop breeding strategy. Challenging these topics is the objective of launching the Special Issue Volume II.

The present Special Issue highlights various types of physical and biological research concerning the management of plant pathogens, insect pests, and weeds under field and greenhouse conditions. Of these, quality-improved traps constitute a promising tool to prevent pathogenic, wind-carried spores and flying insect pests from entering a greenhouse or to monitor their spatial and periodic changes, ensuring safe crop production. Safe and effective apparatus can be a practical an cutting-edge tool in eradicating weeds, such as the use of an electric mulching system, or to precipitate pesticides which have been sprayed outside and entered residential spaces for humans. An extensive elucidation of the photo-selective expression of pathogenicity-related genes in fungal phytopathogens provides an academic basis for constructing a light-exposure strategy for pathogen control. Despite the ongoing challenges, continued research will provide new insights that will enable the development of reliable plant protection methods, ensuring sustainable crop production, even as changes arise in different cropping systems.

Prof. Dr. Hideyoshi Toyoda
Guest Editor

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agronomy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

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Keywords

  • elucidation of electrostatic principles for pest control
  • electrostatic trapping of air-borne conidia, flying insect pests and plant pollen
  • electrostatic attraction of phototactic insect pests
  • development of insect-repelling apparatus
  • damage analysis for insects and weeds exposed to arc discharge
  • utilization of organic materials in electrostatic pest control devices
  • heating sterilization of soil to exterminate pathogens, insects and weed seeds
  • identification of useful genes conferring pest resistance to crop plants
  • searching of effective antagonistic microbes suppressing different types of pests in crop plants
  • lighting techniques to attract insect pests or disturb their behavior for host attacking
  • selective light exposure techniques to control the development of diseases caused by pathogens on host plants

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Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

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20 pages, 7097 KiB  
Article
Acanthoscelides atrocephalus (Pic, 1938) and Its Potential for Biological Control of Two Weed Species
by Mayara Guelamann da Cunha Espinelli Greco, Enrique Soratto Correia, Geoffrey Morse, Edilson Caron, Dirceu Agostinetto and Flávio Roberto Mello Garcia
Agronomy 2025, 15(2), 315; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy15020315 - 26 Jan 2025
Viewed by 868
Abstract
In order to replace chemical herbicides, which harm the environment and health, we seek sustainable methods to control weeds. We remove a seed-beetle species, Acanthoscelides atrocephalus, from synonymy with Acanthoscelides modestus and recognize it as a potential bioagent for Aeschynomene denticulata and [...] Read more.
In order to replace chemical herbicides, which harm the environment and health, we seek sustainable methods to control weeds. We remove a seed-beetle species, Acanthoscelides atrocephalus, from synonymy with Acanthoscelides modestus and recognize it as a potential bioagent for Aeschynomene denticulata and A. indica. Belonging the megacornis group of the genus Acanthoscelides, its fine morphology was analyzed using high-resolution photography and scanning electron microscopy. The species differs from others of the A. megacornis group based on integument coloration, distinctive patterns of vestiture on the pronotum and pygidium, large and sexually dimorphic eyes, a strong frontal carina extending from the vertex of the head to the clypeus, and distinctive armature in the internal sac of the male genitalia. It stands out as a biological control agent due to the larvae’s habit of feeding on seeds, which hinders the development of the embryo. Through tetrazolium and germination tests, it was discovered that 100% of the infested seeds had no viable seed integument and did not germinate. A. atrocephalus is no longer a synonym of Acanthoscelides modestus. This species is a predator of A. denticulata and A. indica and prevents seed germination, becoming promising as a bioagent for the control of these weeds. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Insights into Pathogen, Insect Pest, and Weed Control in Field and Greenhouse Cropping Systems—2nd Edition)
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17 pages, 4379 KiB  
Article
Assisted Stacking of Fungal Disease Resistance Genes in Central American Coffee Cultivars
by Eduardo Granados Brenes, Laércio Zambolim, Dênia Pires de Almeida, Poliane Marcele Ribeiro, Bruna Lopes Mariz and Eveline Teixeira Caixeta
Agronomy 2025, 15(1), 230; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy15010230 - 18 Jan 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 830
Abstract
The main diseases that affect coffee production worldwide are coffee leaf rust (CLR) and coffee berry disease (CBD), caused by fungi Hemileia vastatrix and Colletotrichum kahawae, respectively. The identification of cultivars with stacking resistance genes is of paramount importance for the control of [...] Read more.
The main diseases that affect coffee production worldwide are coffee leaf rust (CLR) and coffee berry disease (CBD), caused by fungi Hemileia vastatrix and Colletotrichum kahawae, respectively. The identification of cultivars with stacking resistance genes is of paramount importance for the control of these diseases. This work aimed to profile the phenotypic and genetic resistance of 160 genotypes belonging to 36 commercial coffee cultivars from five Central American countries regarding resistance to races II and XXXIII of H. vastatrix through phenotypic evaluation and evaluations associated with the genetic loci of resistance to CLR and CBD by molecular markers. Of the 160 genotypes from Central America evaluated, 26.25% presented genes stacked to the three loci of resistance to CLR and the locus of resistance to CBD, and resistance to races II and XXXIII when inoculated with urediniospores. In addition, 14 genotypes were identified with the presence of the SH3 gene, whose resistance has not yet been broken. This work revealed errors in passport data or hybridizations in cultivars and even possible resistance breakdown in the Catimor genetic group. These results are essential to the search for strategies in coffee genetic breeding programs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Insights into Pathogen, Insect Pest, and Weed Control in Field and Greenhouse Cropping Systems—2nd Edition)
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14 pages, 2090 KiB  
Article
Pest Detection Based on Lightweight Locality-Aware Faster R-CNN
by Kai-Run Li, Li-Jun Duan, Yang-Jun Deng, Jin-Ling Liu, Chen-Feng Long and Xing-Hui Zhu
Agronomy 2024, 14(10), 2303; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy14102303 - 7 Oct 2024
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1703
Abstract
Accurate and timely monitoring of pests is an effective way to minimize the negative effects of pests in agriculture. Since deep learning-based methods have achieved good performance in object detection, they have been successfully applied for pest detection and monitoring. However, the current [...] Read more.
Accurate and timely monitoring of pests is an effective way to minimize the negative effects of pests in agriculture. Since deep learning-based methods have achieved good performance in object detection, they have been successfully applied for pest detection and monitoring. However, the current pest detection methods fail to balance the relationship between computational cost and model accuracy. Therefore, this paper proposes a lightweight, locality-aware faster R-CNN (LLA-RCNN) method for effective pest detection and real-time monitoring. The proposed model uses MobileNetV3 to replace the original backbone, reduce the computational complexity, and compress the size of the model to speed up pest detection. The coordinate attention (CA) blocks are utilized to enhance the locality information for highlighting the objects under complex backgrounds. Furthermore, the generalized intersection over union (GIoU) loss function and region of interest align (RoI Align) technology are used to improve pest detection accuracy. The experimental results on different types of datasets validate that the proposed model not only significantly reduces the number of parameters and floating-point operations (FLOPs), but also achieves better performance than some popular pest detection methods. This demonstrates strong generalization capabilities and provides a feasible method for pest detection on resource-constrained devices. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Insights into Pathogen, Insect Pest, and Weed Control in Field and Greenhouse Cropping Systems—2nd Edition)
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13 pages, 1953 KiB  
Article
Potential for Grain Sorghum as a Trap and Nursery Crop for Helicoverpa zea and Its Natural Enemies and Dissemination of HearNPV into Cotton
by Wilfrid Calvin, Jeffrey Gore, Jeremy Greene, Lindsey Perkin and David L. Kerns
Agronomy 2024, 14(8), 1779; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy14081779 - 13 Aug 2024
Viewed by 1175
Abstract
Experiments were conducted in 2020 and 2021 in College Station, TX; Stoneville, MS; and Blackville, SC, to evaluate the potential of grain sorghum to serve as a trap crop for Helicoverpa zea (Boddie), a nursery crop for natural enemies of H. zea, [...] Read more.
Experiments were conducted in 2020 and 2021 in College Station, TX; Stoneville, MS; and Blackville, SC, to evaluate the potential of grain sorghum to serve as a trap crop for Helicoverpa zea (Boddie), a nursery crop for natural enemies of H. zea, and a source of Helicoverpa armigera nucleopolyhedrovirus (HearNPV) for H. zea management in cotton. The experiments consisted of three treatments, including cotton-only, non-treated cotton–sorghum, and HearNPV-treated cotton–sorghum. Variables, including percent injury to fruiting forms, parasitized H. zea larvae, egg density, H. zea larval density, beneficial arthropod numbers, and HearNPV prevalence, were compared between the treatments. Growing cotton in an intercropping system with grain sorghum did not result in a consistent increase in H. zea control and beneficial arthropod density relative to the cotton-only treatment. Additionally, our results did not show sufficient evidence that grain sorghum interplanted with cotton can serve as a source of HearNPV that can favor H. zea control in cotton. However, we found that, if maintained in the cotton canopy, HearNPV may favor some level of H. zea suppression in cotton. Based on our HearNPV infection analyses using PCR, chrysopids, coccinellids, pentatomids, reduviids, formicids, anthocorids, and spiders appeared to be carrying HearNPV. The virus was detected consistently in specimens of coccinellids, pentatomids, and reduviids across both years of the study. We suggest that further investigation on virus efficacy against H. zea in cotton using the sorghum–cotton system as well as the ability of grain sorghum to serve as a H. zea trap crop and source of H. zea natural enemies be considered in future studies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Insights into Pathogen, Insect Pest, and Weed Control in Field and Greenhouse Cropping Systems—2nd Edition)
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18 pages, 5359 KiB  
Article
Effects of Fungicides on Fungal Development, Conidiophore Morphology, and Conidial Releases from Single Strawberry Powdery Mildew Colonies Assessed Using an Electrostatic Technique
by Ami Takahara, Shunsuke Asano, Minami Kurokawa, Kanon Shibata, Rina Muto and Teruo Nonomura
Agronomy 2024, 14(7), 1357; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy14071357 - 23 Jun 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1991
Abstract
We evaluated the effects of fungicides on strawberry powdery mildew (PM) fungus, Podosphaera aphanis, using an electrostatic technique. Thirty-six fungicides were sprayed on single colonies of P. aphanis on leaves of strawberry seedlings (Fragaria × ananassa Duchesne ex Rozier). Colony development [...] Read more.
We evaluated the effects of fungicides on strawberry powdery mildew (PM) fungus, Podosphaera aphanis, using an electrostatic technique. Thirty-six fungicides were sprayed on single colonies of P. aphanis on leaves of strawberry seedlings (Fragaria × ananassa Duchesne ex Rozier). Colony development varied depending on the tested fungicides. Particularly, pyraziflumid, triflumizole, triforine, polyoxin, sodium hydrogen carbonate + copper wettable powder, and flutianil + mepanipyrim were highly effective for reducing colony development. P. aphanis colonies were histochemically stained to observe the morphological characteristics of fungal cells forming normal and abnormal conidiophores. Abnormal conidiophores were classified into seven types based on their morphological and cytological characteristics. Finally, asexual conidia were collected from single P. aphanis colonies on the leaves spray-treated with fungicides using a dielectrically polarized insulator plate (electrostatic spore collector); conidia attracted to the insulator plates were counted using a high-fidelity digital microscope. Most tested fungicides highly inhibited the production and/or germination of asexual conidia. The germination of asexual conidia was observed only in thiophanate-methyl (methyl benzimidazole carbamates fungicides; MBC fungicides) and azoxystrobin (quinone outside inhibitors; QoI fungicides). Assessing with the electrostatic technique, we clarified that P. aphanis has developed resistance to both thiophanate-methyl and azoxystrobin. Thus, the methodological assessment analyzing the colony development and the number of conidia released from single colonies will be helpful information for screening effective fungicides. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Insights into Pathogen, Insect Pest, and Weed Control in Field and Greenhouse Cropping Systems—2nd Edition)
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Review

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18 pages, 1425 KiB  
Review
Environmentally Friendly and Effective Alternative Approaches to Pest Management: Recent Advances and Challenges
by Huanzhang Shang, Dejia He, Boliao Li, Xiulin Chen, Kun Luo and Guangwei Li
Agronomy 2024, 14(8), 1807; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy14081807 - 16 Aug 2024
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 6386
Abstract
The most important requirement in sustainable agriculture is to significantly reduce the application of chemical pesticides, and environmentally friendly and effective approaches to pest management should be established to control the population size of dominant pests. To promote the development of promising plant [...] Read more.
The most important requirement in sustainable agriculture is to significantly reduce the application of chemical pesticides, and environmentally friendly and effective approaches to pest management should be established to control the population size of dominant pests. To promote the development of promising plant protection measures, substantial efforts have been made regarding the identification of secondary botanical chemicals, pheromones, and RNA pesticides, as well as the optimization of the feeding conditions of biocontrol agents and the treatment methods of defensive phytohormones. Advances in these areas have revealed effective strategies for pest management, some of which have been widely implemented in agricultural practices. Although the effectiveness of some of these attempts is evidenced by their success in combating herbivore insects, significant challenges remain. Thus, this review summarizes the potential applications and challenges associated with the environmentally friendly and effective alternative strategies currently implemented in pest management. It is revealed that a combination of these approaches will significantly impede the evolution of pests, leading to maximum efficiency in pest management. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Insights into Pathogen, Insect Pest, and Weed Control in Field and Greenhouse Cropping Systems—2nd Edition)
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Other

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15 pages, 3524 KiB  
Perspective
Electric Discharge-Generating Devices Developed for Pathogen, Insect Pest, and Weed Management: Current Status and Future Directions
by Shin-ichi Kusakari and Hideyoshi Toyoda
Agronomy 2025, 15(1), 123; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy15010123 - 6 Jan 2025
Viewed by 782
Abstract
Electrostatic techniques have introduced innovative approaches to devise efficient tools for pest control across various categories, encompassing pathogens, insects, and weeds. The focus on electric discharge technology has proven pivotal in establishing effective methods with simple device structures, enabling cost-effective fabrication using readily [...] Read more.
Electrostatic techniques have introduced innovative approaches to devise efficient tools for pest control across various categories, encompassing pathogens, insects, and weeds. The focus on electric discharge technology has proven pivotal in establishing effective methods with simple device structures, enabling cost-effective fabrication using readily available materials. The electric discharge-generating devices can be assembled using commonplace conductor materials, such as ordinary metal nets linked to a voltage booster and a grounded electric wire. The strategic pairing of charged and grounded conductors at specific intervals generates an electric field, leading the charged conductor to initiate a corona discharge in the surrounding space. As the applied voltage increases, the corona discharge intensifies and may eventually result in an arc discharge due to the breakdown of air when the voltage surpasses the insulation resistance limit. The utilization of corona and arc discharges plays a crucial role in these techniques, with the corona-discharging stage creating (1) negative ions to stick to pests, which can then be captured with a positively charged pole, (2) ozone gas to sterilize plant hydroponic solutions, and (3) plasma streams to exterminate fungal colonies on leaves, and the arc-discharging stage projecting electric sparks to zap and kill pests. These electric discharge phenomena have been harnessed to develop reliable devices capable of managing pests across diverse classes. In this review, we elucidate past achievements and challenges in device development, providing insights into the current status of research. Additionally, we discuss the future directions of research in this field, outlining potential avenues for further exploration and improvement. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Insights into Pathogen, Insect Pest, and Weed Control in Field and Greenhouse Cropping Systems—2nd Edition)
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