Summary
This synthesis paper articulates how ecological forces can be harnessed to strengthen tritrophic defences—plant-mediated pest and disease suppression—as an alternative to pesticide-centred crop protection. The authors present three complementary approaches deployable from seed to landscape scale: habitat-mediated tactics, breeding-dependent strategies, and epigenetic interventions. The paper argues that biodiversity-driven pest management, coupled with soil health restoration and crop diversification guided by plant-soil feedbacks, generates multiple cobenefits for human health, ecological resilience, and climate mitigation.
UK applicability
The tritrophic defence framework is broadly applicable to UK farming contexts, where regulatory pressure to reduce pesticide use and carbon emissions aligns with these ecologically-driven approaches. UK horticulture, arable, and mixed farming systems could adopt habitat-mediated and breeding-dependent tactics; however, specific cultivar recommendations and rotation schemes would require UK-adapted research and extension.
Key measures
Framework for tritrophic defence deployment; ecological infrastructure strategies; crop diversification approaches; soil health metrics; plant immunity priming; carbon footprint reduction; climate resilience indicators
Outcomes reported
The paper synthesises three approaches (habitat-mediated, breeding-dependent, and epigenetic tactics) for deploying tritrophic defences against crop pests, pathogens, and weeds across multiple organisational scales. It demonstrates how biodiversity-driven crop protection can be integrated with soil health, crop diversification, and plant immunity to support climate-resilient food systems.
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