Asia supports major food, horticultural, and plantation crops, yet uneven loss data and surveillance capacity hinder continental-scale prioritization of plant diseases. This review integrates FAOSTAT crop statistics, EPPO pathogen occurrence and host records, Scopus affiliation- based publication data, and disease-specific literature to identify regional surveillance and management priorities. Wheat, rice, maize, and potato accounted for nearly three quarters of the documented crop-pathogen intersections, highlighting shared staple-crop vulnerabilities. Rice blast, bacterial blight, sheath blight, and viral diseases remain major concerns in Eastern, Southern, and South-eastern Asia, where intensive cultivation and changing pathogen populations complicate durable control. Wheat rusts, bunts, and cyst nematodes warrant attention in Central, Southern, and Western Asia, while wheat blast highlights the introduction risks in Southern Asian. Fusarium head blight and maize ear rots link crop protection with food and feed safety. Potato late blight, viral degeneration, and bacterial wilt emphasize seed-tuber health in temperate and highland systems. In South-eastern Asia, cassava mosaic disease, banana Fusarium wilt, and oil palm basal stem rot present challenges associated with infected planting material and persistent inoculum. Tomato viruses threaten Western Asian protected horticulture, while citrus huanglongbing and fire blight highlight the need for healthy nursery stock and early detection. These regional disease profiles call for management tailored to production systems and pathogen biology, prioritizing durable resistance in cereals, healthy planting material in vegetatively propagated crops, and containment of persistent soilborne diseases. Standardized diagnostics, coordinated surveillance, and resource sharing can strengthen disease management across regions with unequal research and surveillance capacity.
In our screening program for novel biocontrol agents, we found that the culture filtrate of the marine-derived fungus Aspergillus udagawae SFC20170619-M03 exhibited disease control activity against several fungal plant diseases, including tomato gray mold, tomato late blight, and pepper anthracnose. Bioassay-guided fractionation of the active extracts led to the isolation of sixteen secondary metabolites, comprising nine xanthones (1–9), three benzoquinones (10–12), three spirocyclic furanone lactams (13–15), and one polyene (16). Among these compounds, the xanthone derivative MS-347a (1), a principal bioactive metabolite of A. udagawae SFC20170619-M03, exhibited promising antifungal and antibacterial activities, with minimum inhibitory concentrations ranging from 3.2 to 100 μg/mL. In planta assays further demonstrated that MS-347a (1) effectively suppressed tomato gray mold, tomato late blight, and pepper anthracnose, with control efficacies from 55% to 94% at a concentration of 62.5 μg/mL. The nonepoxidized xanthone AGI-B4 (7) exhibited potent and selective anti-oomycete activity against Phytophthora infestans, with a control efficacy of 91% against tomato late blight at 500 μg/mL. The benzoquinone derivative fumigatin (10) exhibited relatively weaker but broaderspectrum antimicrobial activity in vitro and provided moderate suppression of tomato gray mold in vivo. Taken together, these findings suggest that A. udagawae SFC20170619-M03 and its bioactive metabolites represent promising resources for the development of environmentally sustainable biocontrol agents for agricultural applications.
Vineyard-associated weeds can serve as reservoirs for grapevine pathogens, but their role in virus and viroid ecology remains unclear. This study aims to examine the presence of grapevine-associated viruses and viroids in symptomatic Acalypha australis plants growing under grapevines in Yeongdong, South Korea. RT-PCR screening conducted on neighboring grapevines revealed mixed infections with multiple viruses and viroids. In A. australis, hop stunt viroid (HSVd), grapevine rupestris stem pitting-associated virus, and grapevine virus E were detected via RT-PCR, with additional support from nanopore sequencing. Sequence and phylogenetic analyses showed that the HSVd isolates from A. australis and grapevine collected from the same vineyard were genetically identical. Mechanical inoculation confirmed HSVd infection in healthy A. australis plants. Additional screening identified HSVd infection in A. australis from Yeongcheon and Haman, and in neighboring grapevines. These findings suggest that A. australis may serve as a potential reservoir host of HSVd in vineyard agroecosystems.
Yeasts associated with medicinal-plant tissues are potential sources of antifungal compounds for plant disease management. Microorganisms isolated from surface-sterilised rhizomes of Boesenbergia rotunda and Alpinia galanga were screened against Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici (Fol), F. oxysporum f. sp. cubense (Foc), and Sclerotium rolfsii. In dual-culture assays, BRKS1-2 showed the highest mean inhibition across pathogens (35.5%; p < 0.001), including 42.2 ± 5.3% against Foc and 39.0 ± 0.9% against S. rolfsii, and was the only isolate active against S. rolfsii. Cellfree culture filtrates collected after 24–72 h inhibited all pathogens, with activity increasing over time (p < 0.001). ITS and LSU rRNA phylogenies placed BRKS1-2 within Nakaseomyces, although ITS did not resolve species identity. Whole-genome sequencing produced an 11.5-Mb draft assembly (37.2% GC) at 185.8× mean mapped depth, with 99.90% of filtered reads mapped. Genome-wide comparison showed 98.3% average nucleotide identity with the N. kungkrabaensis reference, supporting identification as N. kungkrabaensis. Gene prediction identified 5,112 protein-coding genes, 222 tRNA genes, and five rRNA genes. LC-MS/MS detected 74 fungal protein groups, mainly associated with central metabolism and stress responses. Fungal-mode antiSMASH predicted four terpene-related clusters and one putative beta-lactone cluster; all abutted contig boundaries and were therefore partial. These findings demonstrate the in vitro antifungal activity of BRKS1-2 and identify candidate biosynthetic loci for investigating the responsible compounds.
