Plant fitness and health status relies on the community of microorganisms that colonizes plants tissues and the surrounding soil. Microorganisms, in fact, perform unique functions for the growth and development of plants that in turn provide a wide variety of microenvironments where microorganisms can thrive.

The host and the colonizing microorganism together constitute a functional unit, called holobiont. The plants holobiont is a dynamic community whose composition and structure is affected by a combination of factors acting together such as the environmental conditions, plants health status, and the disruption of the microbiome resulting in an imbalance in the microbiota. In fact, it is widely demonstrated that microbiota can promote plants growth, as rhizobial inoculants, and can cause plants disease. However, microbiota interaction can also enhance a plants defence by providing resistance against disease-causing pathogens or the suppression of diseases.

Applying this knowledge to domestic plants and agricultural practices would enhance plants resilience and productivity as pests and pathogens continue to cause economic losses and compromise food security. Filling the knowledge gaps around the host-microbiota interactions in relation to plants health may be a useful tool to increase agricultural production, using a more economically and environmentally sustainable approach and a safe alternative to chemical pesticides.

This would respond to some of the most urgent challenges of our times: reducing crops pesticides exposure and the agricultural environmental impact, increasing food safety and agricultural yields, and meeting the rising food-demand globally.

This Research Topic is aimed at collecting state of art articles on the frontier of plants disease management in agriculture, with a specific focus on the innovative alternative approaches to chemical pesticides. This collection welcomes all types of papers accepted by the journal: Original Research, Review, Mini-review, Perspectives, Policy and Practice, Reviews, Conceptual Analysis, Data Report, that address the following but not limited to:

• Plants biocontrol disease
• Microbial community composition related with plants host health status
• Plants microbiota functions under environmental and controlled conditions
• Economically and environmentally sustainable chemical pesticides alternatives

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Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems

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