Endophytic Fungi for Pest and Disease Management

Abstract

Endophytes are microorganisms that inhabit the interior of a healthy plants. They offer great-untapped potentials, which can be exploited to maintain healthy crops. Many cultivated and wild type plants have been investigated for endophytic fungal metabolites which include guanidine and pyrrolizidine alkaloids, indole derivatives, sesquiterpenes, isocoumarin derivatives. These metabolites show beneficial effects to crop plants and many of them also have pesticidal and antimicrobial activity against plant and human pests and pathogens. Full potentials and efforts needed are herein discussed.