Plant volatile‐mediated signalling and its application in agriculture: successes and challenges

Abstract

Summary: The mediation of volatile secondary metabolites in signalling between plants and other organisms has long been seen as presenting opportunities for sustainable crop protection. Initially, exploitation of interactions between plants and other organisms, particularly insect pests, foundered because of difficulties in delivering, sustainably, the signal systems for crop protection. We now have mounting and, in some cases, clear practical evidence for successful delivery by companion cropping or next‐generation genetic modification (GM). At the same time, the type of plant signalling being exploited has expanded to signalling from plants to organisms antagonistic to pests, and to plant stress‐induced, or primed, plant‐to‐plant signalling for defence and growth stimulation. Contents Summary 856 I. Introduction 856 II. Plant volatile‐mediated host signalling 857 III. Plant volatile‐mediated nonhost signalling 858 IV. Plant volatile‐mediated signalling between plants via air 859 V. Plant volatile‐mediated signalling between plants through soil 860 VI. Plant volatile‐mediated signal transduction 862 VII. Success and lessons from exploiting plant volatile‐mediated signalling by companion cropping: push–pull 863 VIII. Exploitation of plant volatile‐mediated signalling in agriculture by GM 864 IX. Conclusions 866 Acknowledgements 866 References 866