Nematode Management Strategies for Sustainable Agriculture and Healthy Soil Ecosystems – A Mini Review

Abstract

Sustainable agriculture relies on improving crop yields for a growing world population, while mitigating the negative pressures by plant pathogens on soil health and crop yield. Plant pathogens involve a wide range of fungi, bacteria, and microscopic worms (or nematodes). Several foodgrain crops incur significant yield losses because of nematode infestations. Nematodes make their way to the roots of growing plants, developing feeding sites, and completing their life cycle which gradually compromises the health and yield of the plant. As such, nematode management strategies are vital to sustainable agriculture. Unfortunately, nematodes have outsmarted and adapted to the conventional control strategies, including both chemical and biological control strategies. It is important to develop a comprehensive, robust, and multifaceted approach that is effective in the prevention, surveillance, early detection, and rapid response of nematodes. To take our society towards a resilient, sustainable agrifood system, we need to actively prioritize and invest our resources in nematode disease management, build capacity of farmers and researchers, and develop robust nematode management strategies that can withstand the challenges of the future. The goal of this mini review is to summarize these abovementioned topics of active research in nematode management for sustainable food security.