Cereal plants in natural ecological systems are often either sequentially or simultaneously attacked by different species of aphids, which significantly decreases the quality and quantity of harvested grain. The severity of the damage is potentially aggravated by microbes associated with the aphids or the coexistence of other fungal pathogens. Although chemical control and the use of cultivars with single-gene-based antibiosis resistance could effectively suppress grain aphid populations, this method has accelerated the development of insecticide resistance and resulted in pest resurgence. Therefore, it is important that effective and environmentally friendly pest management measures to control the damage done by grain aphids to cereals in agricultural ecosystems be developed and promoted. In recent decades, extensive studies have typically focused on further understanding the relationship between crops and aphids, which has greatly contributed to the establishment of sustainable pest management approaches. This review discusses recent advances and challenges related to the control of grain aphids in agricultural production. Current knowledge and ongoing research show that the integration of the large-scale cultivation of aphid-resistant wheat cultivars with agricultural and/or other management practices will be the most prevalent and economically important management strategy for wheat aphid control.

The most important requirement in sustainable agriculture is to significantly reduce the application of chemical pesticides, and environmentally friendly and effective approaches to pest management should be established to control the population size of dominant pests. To promote the development of promising plant protection measures, substantial efforts have been made regarding the identification of secondary botanical chemicals, pheromones, and RNA pesticides, as well as the optimization of the feeding conditions of biocontrol agents and the treatment methods of defensive phytohormones. Advances in these areas have revealed effective strategies for pest management, some of which have been widely implemented in agricultural practices. Although the effectiveness of some of these attempts is evidenced by their success in combating herbivore insects, significant challenges remain. Thus, this review summarizes the potential applications and challenges associated with the environmentally friendly and effective alternative strategies currently implemented in pest management. It is revealed that a combination of these approaches will significantly impede the evolution of pests, leading to maximum efficiency in pest management.

Wheat production worldwide is severely challenged by different pest and pathogen species, and misguided application of chemicals in farming significantly stimulates crop invaders to develop insecticide resistance. The growing desire for sustainable agriculture has promoted the breeding of wheat cultivars with durable pests and diseases resistance tolerance traits, which have become increasingly imperative for wheat production. Various genetic breeding techniques, including transgenic breeding, molecular marker-assisted breeding, molecular breeding with gene pyramiding, gene silencing, and gene editing, have been successfully deployed into wheat cultivar improvement, and have significantly promoted the process of breeding cultivars with multiple substantial resistance traits. Although the success of practical applications of some of these resistant wheat cultivars in farming has suggested that these approaches are effective strategies for combating fungal diseases and herbivorous insects, there remains significant challenges for wheat molecular breeding programs. Thus, this review illustrates and summarizes the recent advances and drawbacks related to the measures associated with molecular breeding in common wheat cultivar improvement.

Deoxynivalenol (DON) is a prominent mycotoxin showing significant accumulation in cereal plants during infection by the phytopathogen Fusarium graminearum. It is a virulence factor that is important in the spread of F. graminearum within cereal heads, and it causes serious yield losses and significant contamination of cereal grains. In recent decades, genetic and genomic studies have facilitated the characterization of the molecular pathways of DON biosynthesis in F. graminearum and the environmental factors that influence DON accumulation. In addition, diverse scab resistance traits related to the repression of DON accumulation in plants have been identified, and experimental studies of wheat–pathogen interactions have contributed to understanding detoxification mechanisms in host plants. The present review illustrates and summarizes the molecular networks of DON mycotoxin production in F. graminearum and the methods of DON detoxification in plants based on the current literature, which provides molecular targets for crop improvement programs. This review also comprehensively discusses recent advances and challenges related to genetic engineering-mediated cultivar improvements to strengthen scab resistance. Furthermore, ongoing advancements in genetic engineering will enable the application of these molecular targets to develop more scab-resistant wheat cultivars with DON detoxification traits.

The English grain aphid Sitobion avenae and phytopathogen Fusarium graminearum are wheat spike colonizers. “Synergistic” effects of the coexistence of S. avenae and F. graminearum on the wheat spikes have been shown in agroecosystems. To develop genetic resistance in diverse wheat cultivars, an important question is how to discover wheat–F. graminearum interactions under S. avenae influence. In recent decades, extensive studies have typically focused on the unraveling of more details on the relationship between wheat-aphids and wheat-pathogens that has greatly contributed to the understanding of these tripartite interactions at the ecological level. Based on the scientific production available, the working hypotheses were synthesized from the aspects of environmental nutrients, auxin production, hormone signals, and their potential roles related to the tripartite interaction S. avenae–wheat–F. graminearum. In addition, this review highlights the relevance of preexposure to the herbivore S. avenae to trigger the accumulation of mycotoxins, which stimulates the infection process of F. graminearum and epidemic of Fusarium head blight (FHB) in the agroecosystems.