PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Hortic.
Sec. Sustainable Pest and Disease Management
Volume 4 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fhort.2025.1605035
Insect pest and plant disease management in horticultural crop production: recent insights provide opportunities for improved control
Provisionally accepted
- North Carolina State University, Raleigh, United States
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With the world population projected to increase to about 8 billion people by 2030, tremendous efforts are needed to produce enough food to feed the population with a deceasing land available for agricultural production. Horticultural crops, characterized by production systems that are very diverse, continue to play a significant role in food security and safety. However, plant pest and plant diseases continue to negatively impact the production of healthy and safe food in horticultural cropping systems, by affecting the quality, quantity and safety of the produce. Further, the emergence and re-emergence of pests and pathogens coupled with rapid development of resistance to available pesticides further exacerbate the challenges of pest and disease control in horticultural systems. With the recognized need to mitigate risks associated with climate change, novel strategies for pest and disease management are required that provide a path towards achieving net zero emission for a more sustainable horticulture production. This perspective highlights some recent research insights that could provide opportunities for improved management of insect pests and plant diseases in horticultural crop production systems.
Keywords: Artificail intelligence (AI), endophyte, Internt of Things (IoT), Integrated pest management, Nanotechnology, smart agriculture
Received: 02 Apr 2025; Accepted: 30 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ojiambo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Peter Ojiambo, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.