Pest Management: Challenges, Strategies, and Solutions
A special issue of Horticulturae (ISSN 2311-7524). This special issue belongs to the section "Insect Pest Management".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2026 | Viewed by 171
Special Issue Editors
Interests: seven-spotted ladybird beetle; integrated pest management; artificial intelligence; insect sex pheromones; machine learning
Interests: tetranychus spider mite; Bemisia tabaci; pesticide resistance; interated control
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Global horticultural production faces unprecedented pest management challenges driven by climate volatility, pesticide resistance, invasive species expansion, and heightened food safety demands. These pressures threaten crop productivity, ecological sustainability, and economic viability across fruit, vegetable, and ornamental sectors. Traditional reliance on synthetic pesticides is increasingly untenable, necessitating science-driven strategies that leverage ecological principles and plant innate defenses.
This Special Issue, “Pest Management: Challenges, Strategies, and Solutions”, seeks innovative research advancing sustainable pest control through several synergistic themes: plant-centric approaches, including host plant resistance mechanisms, induced defenses activated by herbivory or elicitors, and semiochemical deployment; biodiversity-driven strategies, such as companion planting, habitat manipulation for natural enemies, conservation biological control, and physical and mechanical control measures, such as the use of sex pheromones; and implementation pathways, encompassing socioeconomic adoption barriers, policy frameworks, and farmer-participatory validation.
We welcome original research, comprehensive reviews, and practical case studies that bridge fundamental science with field applications. Submissions should prioritize ecological sustainability, scalability, and tangible solutions for horticultural crops worldwide.
Dr. Rizhao Chen
Dr. Shaoli Wang
Guest Editors
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
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. Horticulturae 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 2200 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.
Keywords
- integrated pest management (IPM)
- host plant resistance
- sex pheromone
- induced plant defense
- companion planting
- conservation biological control
- chemical ecology
- sustainable horticulture
- plant defense elicitors
- insect–plant interactions
- climate resilience
- pesticide resistance
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