Myxomycetes (plasmodial slime molds) are eukaryotic protist predators that are associated with wood, leaf litter, and soil in forests, where they feed on bacteria, protozoans, and (to a more limited extent) fungi. The health of crop plants is essential because they represent a primary food source for humans. However, when myxomycetes produce numerous fruiting bodies on the stems and leaves of crop plants, which is herein referred to as a myxomycete colonization, this has the potential of interfering with plant photosynthesis, transpiration and respiration by blocking out light and covering stomata. Myxomycetes are not pathogens, but their occurrence on plants can be mistakenly interpreted as some type of infection. However, this phenomenon has been largely ignored. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the taxonomic and economic diversity of the organisms involved in myxomycete colonization. In addition, the various types of myxomycete colonization reported in the literature are described and discussed, a number of images provided, and cultural and chemical prevention and control measures are summarized. The latter should be of significant relevance for local production of crops and plant protective stations. While myxomycetes are not pathogens of crop plants, some species can seriously impact commercially grown mushrooms. Reports of myxomycetes affecting mushrooms are also described in this paper.

Biosecurity in agriculture is essential for preventing the introduction and spread of plant-parasitic nematodes (PPNs) which threaten global food security by reducing crop yields and facilitating disease spread. These risks are exacerbated by increased global trade and climate change, which may alter PPN distribution and activity, increasing their impact on agricultural systems. Addressing these challenges is vital to maintaining the integrity of the food supply chain. This review highlights significant advancements in managing PPN-related biosecurity risks within the food supply chain, particularly considering climate change\'s evolving influence. It discusses the PPN modes of transmission, factors increasing the risk of infestation, the impact of PPNs on food safety and security, and traditional and emerging approaches for detecting and managing these pests. Literature suggests that implementing advanced biosecurity measures could decrease PPN infestation rates by up to 70%, substantially reducing crop yield losses and bolstering food security. Notably, the adoption of modern detection and management techniques, (molecular diagnostics and integrated pest management) and emerging geospatial surveillance and analysis systems (spectral imaging, change-detection analysis) has shown greater effectiveness than traditional methods. These innovations offer promising avenues for enhancing crop health and securing the food supply chain against environmental shifts. The integration of these strategies is crucial, demonstrating the potential to transform biosecurity practices and sustain agricultural productivity in the face of changing climatic conditions. This analysis emphasizes the importance of adopting advanced measures to protect crop health and ensure food supply chain resilience, providing valuable insights for stakeholders across the agricultural sector.

Crop health directly affects yields and food security. At present, agrochemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides are mainly used in agricultural production to promote crop health. However, long-term excessive utilization of agrochemicals will damage the ecological environment of farmlands and increase the safety risk of agricultural products. It is urgent to explore efficient and environment-friendly agricultural products. Rhizosphere microbiome are considered as the second genome of plants, which are closely related to crop health. Understanding the key functional microbes, microbe-microbe interactions, and plant-microbe interactions are fundamental for exploring the potential of beneficial microbes in promoting crop health. However, due to the heterogeneity and complexity of the natural environment, stimulating the function of indigenous microorganisms remains uncertain. Synthetic microbial community (SynCom) is an artificial combination of two or more different strain isolates of microorganisms, with different taxonomic, genetic, or functional characteristic. Because of the advantages of maintaining species diversity and community stability, SynCom has been widely applied in the fields of human health, environmental governance and industrial production, and may also have great potential in promoting crop health. We summarized the concept and research status of SynCom, expounded the principles and methods of constructing SynCom, and analyzed the research on the promotion of crop health by exploring the mechanism of plant-microbe interactions, promoting plant growth and development, and improving stress resistance. Finally, we envisaged the future prospects to guide the using SynCom to improve crop health.
作物健康直接影响作物产量及粮食安全。目前农业生产主要依赖化肥和农药等农用化学品提升作物健康水平,但长期过度使用会破坏农田生态环境,增加农产品安全风险,亟需创制高效且环境友好的绿色投入品。作为植物的第二基因组,根际微生物组与作物健康密切相关,明确核心功能微生物、微生物-微生物以及植物-微生物的相互关系是深入挖掘有益微生物潜力、保证和维持作物健康的核心内容。然而,由于自然环境的异质性和复杂性,激发土著微生物发挥功能仍存在一定限制。合成菌群是人为地将两种或多种具有不同分类和遗传特征及功能特性的微生物进行组合,因菌群兼具多样性及稳定性的优势,已被广泛地应用于人体健康、环境治理和工业生产等领域,在促进作物健康方面也具备巨大潜力。本文阐释了合成菌群的概念及研究现状,解析了菌群构建原则及方法,并从植物-微生物互作机制、促进植物生长发育和提高抗胁迫能力等方面总结了合成菌群促进作物健康的研究进展,并对未来研究进行展望,以期为利用合成菌群提升作物健康水平提供指导。.

Rhizobacteria associated with cultivated crops are known to stimulate plant growth through various indirect or direct mechanisms. In recent years, the host list of plant growth promotion/promoting rhizobacteria has expanded to include bean, barley, cotton, maize, rice, vegetables, peanut, rice, wheat, and several plantation crops. However, interaction of rhizobacteria with tea plants of organic and conventional tea gardens is poorly understood. In the present study, rhizobacterial species associated with tea rhizosphere were isolated from 14 tea gardens located in North Bengal, India. In total, 16 rhizobacterial isolates isolated from collected soil samples were assessed for antagonistic and plant growth promotion/promoting activity under laboratory conditions. Molecular characterization based on sequencing of 16S rRNA gene revealed dominance of Bacillus with five species followed by Pseudomonas with two species. Interestingly, only one isolate was affiliated with actinobacteria, i.e., Microbacterium barkeri. Out of 16 isolates, isolates Bacillus subtilis OKAKP01, B. subtilis BNLG01, B. paramycoides BOK01, M. barkeri BPATH02, and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia BSEY01 showed highest growth inhibition against Fusarium solani (68.2 to 72.8%), Pseudopestalotiopsis theae (71.1 to 85.6%), and Exobasidium vexans (67.4 to 78.3%) causing respective Fusarium dieback, gray blight, and blister blight diseases in tea crop. Further, these five isolates also possessed significantly greater antifungal (siderophore producer, protease, chitinase, and cellulase activity) and plant growth promotion/promoting (indole-3-acetic acid production, ACC deaminase, ammonia, and phosphate solubilization) traits over other eleven rhizobacterial isolates. Therefore, these five isolates of rhizobacteria were chosen for their plant growth promotion/promoting activity on tea plants in nursery conditions. Results from nursery experiments revealed that these five rhizobacteria significantly improved growth rates of tea plants compared with the control. Therefore, this study suggests that these rhizobacteria could be used to formulate biopesticides and biofertilizers, which could be applied to sustainable tea cultivation to improve crop health and reduce disease attack.

The utilization of direct wastewater for irrigation poses many environmental problems such as soil quality deterioration due to the accumulation of salts, heavy metals, micro-pollutants, and health risks due to undesirable microorganisms. This hampers its agricultural reuse in arid and semi-arid regions. To address these concerns, the present study introduces a recent approach that involves using indirectly recharged groundwater (GW) with secondary treated municipal wastewater (STW) for irrigation through a Soil Aquifer Treatment-based system (SAT). This method aims to mitigate freshwater scarcity in semi-arid regions. The study assessed GW levels, physicochemical properties, and microbial diversity of GW, and soil in both impacted (receiving recycled water) and non-impacted (not receiving recycled water) areas, before recycling (2015-2018) and after recycling (2019-2022) period of the project. The results indicated a significant increase of 68-70% in GW levels of the studied boreholes in the impacted areas. Additionally, the quality of indirectly recharged GW in the impacted areas improved notably in terms of electrical conductivity (EC), hardness, total dissolved solids (TDS), sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), along with certain cations and anions (hard water to soft water). No significant difference was observed in soil properties and microbial diversity of the impacted areas, except for EC and SAR, which were reduced by 50% and 39%, respectively, after the project commenced. The study also monitored specific microbial species, including total coliforms, Escherichia coli (as indicator organisms), Shigella, and Klebsiella in some of the harvested crops (beetroot, tomato, and spinach). However, none of the analysed crops exhibited the presence of the studied microorganisms. Overall, the study concludes that indirectly recharged GW using STW is a better sustainable and safe irrigation alternative compared to direct wastewater use or extracted hard GW from deep aquifers.

Plants are essential for life on earth, and agricultural crops are a primary food source for humans. For the One Health future, crop health is crucial for safe, high-quality agricultural products and the development of future green commodities. However, the overuse of pesticides in modern agriculture raises concerns about their adverse effects on crop resistance and product quality. Recently, biostimulants, including microecological bacteria agents and nanoparticles, have garnered worldwide interest for their ability to sustain plant health and enhance crop resistance. This review analyzed the effects and mechanisms of pesticide stress on crop health. It also investigated the regulation of biostimulants on crop health and the multiomics mechanism, combining research on nanoselenium activating various crop health aspects conducted by the authors\' research group. The paper helps readers understand the impact of pesticides on crop health and the positive influence of various biostimulants, especially nanomaterials and small molecules, on crop health.

Straw returning is a sustainable way that does not destroy soil ecology in agronomic management. Some studies have found that straw returning may aggravate or reduce soilborne diseases in the past few decades. Despite the increasing number of independent studies investigated the effect of straw returning on root rot of crops, the quantitative analysis regarding the relationship between straw returning and crop root rot is still undefined. In this study, keywords co-occurrence matrix was extracted from 2489 published studies (published from 2000 to 2022, the same below) on controlling soilborne diseases of crops. The methods used for soilborne diseases prevention have shifted from chemical to biological and agricultural control since 2010. As root rot is the soilborne disease with the largest weight in keyword co-occurrence according to statistics, we further collected 531 articles focusing on crop root rot. Notably, the 531 studies are mainly distributed in the United States, Canada, China and other countries in Europe and the south and southeast of Asia, and focus on the root rot of soybean, tomato, wheat and other important grain crops or economic crops. Based on the meta-analysis of 534 measurements in 47 previous studies, we explored how 10 management factors (soil pH/texture, type/size of straw, depth/rate/cumulative amount of application, days after application, beneficial/pathogenic microorganism inoculated before application and annual N-fertilizer input) during straw returning affect root rot onset worldwide. The results showed that straw size and microorganisms inoculated before straw returning are the key factors affecting the incidence of root rot. In combination with actual agricultural production, detailed advice applicable to traditional farming system on the optimization management of straw returning was given. This study emphasized the significance of straw pretreatment and farmland management to reduce soilborne diseases during straw returning.

Maize is an important food crop and its fungal disease has become a limiting factor to improve the yield and quality of maize. In the control of plant pathogens, commercial fungicides have no obvious effect on corn diseases due to the emergence of drug resistance. Therefore, it is of great significance to develop new fungicides with novel structure, high efficiency, and low toxicity to control maize diseases. In this paper, a series of 1,3,4-oxadiazole derivatives were designed and synthesized from benzoyl hydrazine and aromatic aldehydes through condensation and oxidation cyclization reaction. The antifungal activity of oxadiazole derivatives against three maize disease pathogens, such as Rhizoctonia solani (R. solani), Gibberella zeae (G. zeae), and Exserohilum turcicum (E. turcicum), were evaluated by mycelium growth rate method in vitro. The results indicated that most of the synthesized derivatives exhibited positive antifungal activities. Especially against E. turcicum, several compounds demonstrated significant antifungal activities and their EC 50 values were lower than positive control carbendazim. The EC 50 values of compounds 4k, 5e, and 5k were 50.48, 47.56, 32.25 μg/ml, respectively, and the carbendazim was 102.83 μg/ml. The effects of active compounds on E. turcicum microstructure were observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results showed that compounds 4k, 5e, and 5k could induce the hyphae of E. turcicum to shrink and collapse obviously. In order to elucidate the preliminary mechanism of oxadiazole derivatives, the target compounds 5e and 5k were docked with the theoretical active site of succinate dehydrogenase (SDH). Compounds 5e and 5k could bind to amino acid residues through hydrophobic contact and hydrogen bonds, which explained the possible mechanism of binding between the inhibitor and target protein. In addition, the compounds with antifungal activities had almost no cytotoxicity to MCF-7. This study showed that 1,3,4-oxadiazole derivatives were worthy for further attention as potential antifungal agents for the control of maize diseases.

This article present observational and experimental data describing a range of biotic and abiotic parameters that can be related to ecosystem services under contrasted types of crop management: conventional, conservation and organic agricultures. Ninety fields, either cultivated with winter wheat or fava bean, located in Southwestern France, near Toulouse, were monitored for two growing seasons (2014-2016). The dataset encompass data about crop pests (aphids, grain borer, bean beetles, slugs), crop pest natural enemies (hoverflies, parasitoids, predators), soil sensitivity to erosion, crop productivity, pathogenic fungal infection and root colonization by mycorrhiza. This article present detailed protocols applied for each measurement and data collected to describe the context of each field: soil structure, landscape and crop management indicators. The data presented here can be found in Portail Data INRA repository (DOI: 10.15454/KEW1GK) and were exhaustively used and discussed in the research article Conservation agriculture as a promising trade-off between conventional and organic agriculture in bundling ecosystem services [1].

Atmospheric bioaerosols, which contain a diverse group of various biological materials, also include pathogenic microorganisms such as viruses, bacteria, and fungal spores. The dispersal of various pathogens negatively impacts the human and ecosystem health. While the impact of pathogenic bacteria and viruses on human and ecosystem health is well documented, the impact of fungal spores on crop, however, is poorly characterized. An unprecedented increase in number of fungal and fungal-like diseases (emerging fungal diseases (EFDs)) in plants is threatening the food security and endangering the biodiversity. In present communication, we show an increasing trend in the fungal bioaerosol attacks on crops over India outstripping bacteria and viruses. We further argue about the complex interactions between the fungal species, and crop impact over India is unique and highly interconnected with the topography, meteorological variables, and season of the year. Under constantly warming scenario, the fungal attacks on plants are expected to rise and, in all likelihood, extend to the sensitive and fragile ecosystems like the Himalayan region and the Western Ghats. An increasing trend in EFDs calls for immediate coordinated efforts towards understanding the type and diversity of pathogenic fungal bioaerosols. There is, however, a lack over Indian region about biogeography of pathogenic fungi. The detailed biogeography would help in improving public and political awareness to formulate the effective policy decisions. Any further disregard and delay in recognizing the importance of EFDs to crop and sensitive ecosystems can have severe societal and ecological repercussions over Indian region.