Disease dynamics in fruit crops: Tracking the journey for better sustainability

Production sustainability of perennial fruit crops has always been challenged by changing dynamics of diseases, more so with ongoing patterns of climate change. Efforts have been made to analyze the reasons behind the repeated failures to address the management of many diseases in fruit crops using conventional approaches. The stronger application of nextgeneration sequencing and other biotechnological tools in disease resistance breeding, the role of microbial antagonists in developing wide spectrum bio-formulations, and elevating plant nutrition vis-s-vis plant immunity are suggested to come of age in developing some time-tested strategies for fruit crops to display production sustainability, besides the development of next-generation bio fungicides and nano-biofungicides. Understanding the interplay between hosts and pathogens concerning plant immunity in regulating or neutralizing the invading pathogen is still an enigma with many unresolved mysteries.