REVIEW article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Pathogen Interactions
This article is part of the Research TopicNon-chemical Strategies for Managing Plant Diseases and Abiotic StressesView all 5 articles
Non-Chemical Control of Fungal Pathogens in Crops: A One-Health Perspective on Strategies, Mechanisms, and Future Directions
Provisionally accepted
Charith Raj Adkar-Purushothama1,2*
Ashish Chettimada1
Thokur Sreepathy Murali2
Annamalai Muthusamy2
Kamal Bouarab1
Jean-Pierre Perreault1- 1Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Canada
- 2Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India
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Fungal pathogens threaten global crop production, food security, and environmental and human health. Though the reliance on chemical fungicides has provided effective control, but raises concerns over environmental contamination, toxic residues, and the rapid emergence of fungicide-resistant strains. These challenges, along with regulatory pressures, highlight the need for safer, more sustainable disease-management strategies. This review incorporates advances in non-chemical approaches for controlling fungal plant diseases, including cultural practices, biological control agents, natural plant metabolites, RNA-based technologies, nanotechnology, and microbiome engineering. We evaluate each strategy's mechanisms, strengths, limitations, and remaining knowledge gaps. An integrated pest management framework is proposed to combine complementary methods, reduce dependence on chemical inputs, enhance crop resilience, and support human and ecosystem health.
Keywords: biological control, Fungal pathogens, induced resistance, microbiomeengineering, pest management, RNA Interference
Received: 14 Nov 2025; Accepted: 17 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Adkar-Purushothama, Chettimada, Murali, Muthusamy, Bouarab and Perreault. 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: Charith Raj Adkar-Purushothama
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