The Challenge of Coping with Globally and Locally Emerging Fungal and Oomycetes Plant Pathogens

Dear Colleagues,

The General Assembly of United Nations proclaimed 2020 the International Year of Plant Health (IYPH), with the aims of raising awareness of the importance of plant health for a sustainable development and supporting plant health policies and plant protection services as strategic aspects of global food security, economic development, environment protection, and human health. The scope of this Special Issue is to highlight globally or locally emerging and re-emerging diseases of agricultural crops, ornamentals, and landscape and forest plants, addressing the threat they pose to food security, national and international economy, biodiversity, and the stability of natural ecosystems, and evoke sustainable strategies to cope with them. The emergence of new plant diseases caused by fungi and oomycetes as a consequence of different drivers, including globalization and climate change, is a never ending challenge, and new management strategies have to be developed to counteract the reduction of available fungicides due to justified environmental and human health concerns. An aspect to which particular emphasis will be given is the contribution of new sciences and technologies, such as molecular taxonomy, omics, high throughput sequencing, genome editing, biomatematics, epidemiological modeling, nanotechnologies, and remote sensing, as well as new technical tools, such as sentinel-trees, in situ diagnostics, biostimulants, resistance inducers, eco-friendly substances, and fungicides with specific-activity, in the development of innovative disease management strategies that help increase productivity and ensure food security as well as environmental and human health. Reviews and original research articles dealing with new problems posed by well-known diseases and innovative strategies for their management or addressing new diseases for which it is necessary to develop specific protection tools or modify currently applied management strategies fit the scope of this Issue.

Dr. Santa Olga Cacciola
Prof. Dr. Maria Lodovica Gullino
Guest Editors

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