Nurturing Resilient Crops: The Role of Biological Control in Crop Pest and Disease Management

Dear Colleagues,

Biological control is a crop disease management strategy that employs the utilisation of live organisms or their products to inhibit or remove plant pathogens and pests. This strategy may provide a more sustainable and ecologically friendly alternative to existing chemical control approaches, which may harm the ecosystem and non-target creatures. Pests and diseases, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), account for up to 40% of global food production losses each year. Losses in certain places can be much higher, reaching up to 80% or more in extreme cases. The biological control of crop diseases is gaining popularity as a result of several factors, including increased environmental awareness, concerns about the negative impacts of conventional pesticides on human health, and increasing pesticide resistance and the growing demand for sustainable farming practices.

The proper selection of biocontrol agents can improve biological control efficiency, resulting in increased agricultural output and quality. Biological control may be used with other disease management practices, such as crop rotation, to produce a holistic strategy to disease management. This can assist in minimising dependency on chemical pesticides and increase agricultural sustainability.

Advances in biotechnology, such as genetic engineering, have enabled the development of disease-resistant crops. This has created new options for biological control, as well as the possibility of more focused and effective crop disease control. Likewise, RNAi technology has enormous potential for eliminating plant infections and pests in an environmentally acceptable and sustainable manner. Innovative research on biological control is critical for tackling new threats to global food security, such as climate change and the spread of exotic pests and diseases.

The aim of the special issue is to provide  a thorough understanding  of biological control principles, methodology, and applications across a wide range of agricultural systems and geographical regions.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but not limited to) the following:

• New advances in biological control of pests and diseases;
• Biological control of fungal, bacterial, and viral pathogens and pests of arable crops;
• Biological control of fungal, bacterial, and viral pathogens and pests, including post-harvest pathogens of horticultural crops;
• Biological control of weeds;
• Molecular, biochemical, and ecological approaches to understanding the mechanisms of biological control.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Ravjit Khangura
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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. Biology is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• beneficial microorganisms
• biocontrol agents
• pathogen suppression
• resistance management
• microbial consortia
• SynComs
• sustainable agriculture
• RNAi