Abstract Background The occurrence of cotton pests and diseases has always been an important factor affecting the total cotton production. Cotton has a great dependence on environmental factors during its growth, especially climate change. In recent years, machine learning and especially deep learning methods have been widely used in many fields and have achieved good results. Methods First, this papaer used the common Aprioro algorithm to find the association rules between weather factors and the occurrence of cotton pests. Then, in this paper, the problem of predicting the occurrence of pests and diseases is formulated as time series prediction, and an LSTM-based method was developed to solve the problem. Results The association analysis reveals that moderate temperature, humid air, low wind spreed and rain fall in autumn and winter are more likely to occur cotton pests and diseases. The discovery was then used to predict the occurrence of pests and diseases. Experimental results showed that LSTM performs well on the prediction of occurrence of pests and diseases in cotton fields, and yields the Area Under the Curve (AUC) of 0.97. Conclusion Suitable temperature, humidity, low rainfall, low wind speed, suitable sunshine time and low evaporation are more likely to cause cotton pests and diseases. Based on these associations as well as historical weather and pest records, LSTM network is a good predictor for future pest and disease occurrences. Moreover, compared to the traditional machine learning models (i.e., SVM and Random Forest), the LSTM network performs the best.

Bacterial blight of cotton, caused by Xanthomonas citri subsp. malvacearum, and Fusarium wilt of cotton, caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. vasinfectum, contribute cotton losses worldwide. Resurgences of these diseases in the United States were reported in recent years. There is a pressing need to understand pathogenicity and host responses to the pathogens and develop effective strategies for disease prevention and management. Here, we discuss the current status of bacterial blight and Fusarium wilt of cotton in the field as well as the knowledge of cotton resistance and susceptibility to these pathogens. In addition, we aim to provide insights into how these diseases are recurring and possible methods to use current technologies for biological control of these pathogens.

Cotton is a vital commercial crop in the world and plays an important role for fibre, fuel and edible oil in the community and to industry. Cotton is a white fibrous agricultural product that has a wide variety of uses, from textile production, to creating paper, to producing oil and food products. Cotton is grown all around the globe, and is traded internationally as well. The cotton diseases scenario has shown a continuous change during the past 64 years. Several diseases have been reported for the cotton crop. The use of IDM strategy is gaining momentum now a days, but in developing countries it often lacks the enabling environment for its successful implementation. Cotton crop is affected by various diseases caused by organisms, such as fungi, bacteria and viruses that grow on and within the plant tissues. In this experiment, total seven modules including the control was tested in this experiment from which, module 6 (6.50% PDI), followed by module 5 (8.50% PDI) significantly recorded minimum bacterial leaf blight infection in comparison to the module 7, i.e. control (18.50% PDI) in RCH 2 BG II hybrid. For Alternaria leaf spot disease, module 6 (2.50 % PDI) were recorded significantly minimum Alternaria leaf spot disease in RCH 2 BG II hybrid, as compared to the control (10.50 % PDI), followed by module 5 (4.50 % PDI) and module 4 (5.50 % PDI).

Cotton leaf curl virus (CLCuV) in Pakistan is the most serious threat to cotton crops of last two decades. This diseases causes a huge losses not only to the cotton crops but also the economy of Pakistan is under threat. This problem of Cotton Leaf Curl Disease (CLCuD) is still under discussion among the researchers since it first appeared in 1967 and in 1992-93, it came in epidemic form. The dilemma of CLCuD caused decline in the yield down to 9.05 million bales and 8.04 million bales in 1993-94 in Pakistan. For developing resistant cultivars against the virus to screen against CLCuD, different disease inducing methods such as grafting, delayed sowing and whitefly mediated transfer are used. The epidemiology of diseases is changed by abiotic factors specifically temperature and plant age. Management of CLCuD is the only option that can command the disease in various ways inclusive of change in sowing dates, crop nutrition, cultural practices, vector control, buffer crops and systemic poisoning of cotton seed by seed treatment will make the cotton crop safe in initial 40-50 days after sowing. Biotechnology can also help in controlling this disease through transcriptional gene silencing. By using biotechnological tools broad spectrum resistance can be introduced against all viruses present in the field.

Cotton (Gossypium spp. L.) is the largest source of natural fibers in the world, with a planted area of more than 33 million hectares in 2019. Biotic stress caused by a variety of pathogens and pests has considerable negative impacts on cotton, and control measures increase global production costs. Among the most important diseases affecting cotton are bacteria and fungi that infect leaves, stems, roots and fruits. In addition, viruses, nematodes, insects and mites cause considerable losses. Here, we summarize the diversity of biotic stresses affecting the cotton crop and highlight present and future biotechnological solutions for disease control, including transgenes, RNAi, gene editing and bioagents. We demonstrate that “Ag Biotech” solutions help keep the cotton industry sustainable in cotton-producing countries.

The CRISPR–Cas9 is emerging genome editing tool and very easy and straightforward in operation that has been tested and explored for introduction of new traits in plant systems. Recently, a number of reports have documented utilization of this technology for providing tolerance against viral diseases mediated by begomoviruses. Begomoviruses infect dicot and are transmitted by white flies and cause devastating losses to yield of important agricultural crops including tomato, cassava and cotton. An overview of genomic structure of begomoviruses has been presented to understand the potential strategy for designing of effective sgRNAs to combat the viral replication for generating resistance against infection. This review provides the introduction, recent developments, and applications of the CRISPR–Cas9 system in plants and proposes a holistic methodology for generating cotton plant an example having resistance against begomoviruses. The genome editing using CRISPR–Cas9 system against complex of begomoviruses collectively termed as cotton leaf curl virus, which a major contributor to reduction of the cotton yield especially in Northern India and Pakistan is also discussed thoroughly. In conclusion, this potential strategy could be a sustainable approach for development of tolerant crops against diseases mediated by DNA viruses.

Induced resistance is an effective measure for controlling plant diseases by utilizing the natural defense of the host and meets the strategic needs of pesticide application and safety for agricultural products worldwide. Ganoderma lucidum polysaccharide (GLP), which is the main active molecule of G. lucidum, has been widely used in functional food and clinical medicine. However, there are few reports of the use of GLP for the prevention and control of plant diseases. The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of GLP and its mechanism of inducing plant resistance. In this study, we found that GLP spray and irrigation root treatments can promote growth in cotton. After soaking in GLP, theseedling height and cotton fusarium wilt resistance both increased to some extent, effects that were dose dependent. After treatment of cotton with GLP, the activities of peroxidase (POD), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and polyphenol oxidase (PPO) in leaves increased significantly, whereas the content of malondialdehyde (MDA) decreased. In addition, QRT-PCR results showed significantly increased relative expression of genes related to the jasmonic acid pathway in cotton. Therefore, we speculate that GLP can induce plant resistance by stimulating the jasmonate pathway.

The large-scale long-term plantation of cotton in the Xinjiang region has been accompanied by a regular and wide outbreak of soil-borne fungal diseases such as verticillium wilt, which significantly damaged the local cotton industry. High-throughput sequencing data showed that the cotton field cultivation management measures pose a significant influence upon the original ecological soil fungal community structure. During long-term continuous cropping of cotton, a new soil fungal community structure emerges after several repeated adjustments over five years. The number of verticillium wilt pathogens in the soil increased rapidly with prolonged continuous cropping time, reaching a maximum at around the 10th y; moreover, the abundance of the verticillium wilt pathogen only serves as one of numerous essential factors for disease occurrence. The fungal community structure and the abundance of verticillium wilt pathogens in local cotton fields are gradually formed under joint effects of year-long continuous cropping and supporting cultivation management measures.

Originated from the semi-arid highlands of Mexico, upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) accounts for more than 90% of world cotton fiber production. Intensively cultivated in Brazilian Cerrado since the early 1980s, the wet and warm environment of the region favors epidemics of fungal diseases such a Ramularia leaf spot, which emerged as the main disease of cotton cultivated in an area as large as one million hectares. Fungicides remain as the only resort to effectively control the disease and up to eight sequential sprays may be needed during the season. Research to improve disease management has been conducted during the last two decades including cultural, genetic, chemical and biological control methods. In this review we summarize current knowledge of the disease and the main findings and gaps on disease epidemiology and management and discuss on future direction towards a more sustainable management of a disease of greatest concern to cotton farmers in Brazil.

VSince the first detection in the Dawson/Callide region of Central Queensland in 2012, reniform nematode has become a serious concern for cotton growers and researchers as well. Although reniform is considered one of the major diseases of cotton in the US, it is still considered a minor problem in the Australian cotton industry due to the limited scientific studies of the epidemiology of reniform in the Australian cotton cropping system. This project had a number of objectives to address knowledge gaps and obtain data to understand how the reniform nematode is interacting with cotton plants in Australian soil so that we can improve the management practice. In this project, large numbers of cotton fields from both NSW and QLD have been monitored every season to confirm the presence or absence of plant-parasitic nematodes, and to provide an indication of possible nematode problems in the field. To understand the ecology of reniform nematode in Australian cotton, three glasshouse pot trials were conducted specifically to assess the vertical movement reniform nematodes in the vertisol soil, host/non-host suitability to different crops for reniform nematode, and effect of different reniform nematode population on growth and yield of different cotton varieties. The genetic diversity of the reniform populations found in different crops including cotton was compared to each other while it was also compared with international isolates. Additionally, three different field trials were conducted during this project period to investigate the effectiveness of seed treatment products (with nematicidal property) and a biological control agent to control the reniform nematode.