Upcoming Fungal Pathogens in Plant Disease Management

Fungal pathogens remain among the most persistent threats to global crop production, horticulture, and traditional medicinal plant cultivation, causing yield losses that undermine food security and rural livelihoods. Despite decades of research, many economically important fungal diseases are still poorly characterized at the level of infection biology, pathogen identity, and host range, which limits the design of effective and sustainable management strategies. This Research Topic aims to bring together recent advances in the detection, characterization, and control of fungal plant pathogens, with an emphasis on studies that combine molecular tools, taxonomy, and field-based disease surveys to close these knowledge gaps.Root and vascular wilt diseases caused by Fusarium oxysporum illustrate the scale of the challenge. In Codonopsis pilosula, an important medicinal herb, F. oxysporum-induced root rot has caused severe industry-wide damage, yet the infection process itself was poorly understood until GFP-labelling approaches enabled real-time visualization of fungal colonization within host tissue, offering a platform for testing protective measures. Similarly, in ornamental orchid production in Taiwan, the Fusarium oxysporum species complex (FOSC) has been linked to disease across multiple genera including Cattleya, Cymbidium, Dendrobium, Paphiopedilum, and Phalaenopsis, yet the diversity and distribution of FOSC isolates causing orchid disease had remained largely unresolved before recent multi-locus identification efforts clarified the pathogen population structure. These cases show how a single fungal species complex can pose distinct threats across unrelated host systems, from medicinal roots to ornamental flowers, and how pathogen identification is often the first bottleneck in disease management.Foliar diseases present a parallel challenge. Grey leaf spot in mulberry (Morus spp.), a foundational crop for sericulture, has recently been traced to Pseudocercospora mori through high-throughput sequencing and morphological analysis of diseased samples collected across multiple localities, refining earlier assumptions about the causal agent and demonstrating the value of integrated diagnostic approaches for widespread, economically damaging leaf diseases.Together, these examples highlight recurring themes this Research Topic seeks to address: accurate pathogen identification using molecular and morphological methods, elucidation of infection mechanisms and host-pathogen interactions, and translation of this knowledge into practical disease management.This Research Topic welcomes Original Research, Reviews, and Methods articles covering, but not limited to:- Identification and taxonomy of fungal plant pathogens using molecular and morphological methods- Infection biology, colonization dynamics, and host-pathogen interaction mechanisms- Epidemiology, disease surveillance, and outbreak characterization in field settings- Host resistance mechanisms and susceptibility factors- Chemical, biological, and cultural strategies for fungal disease control- Emerging or re-emerging fungal threats across food, medicinal, and ornamental plant systems- Studies bridging laboratory findings (e.g., imaging, sequencing) with practical field application Topic editors: Sabrina Sarrocco, Filipa Monteiro, Carla M R Varanda Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/84851/upcoming-fungal-pathogens-in-plant-disease-management