The Effect of Mechanical Stress on Plant Susceptibility to Pests: A Mini Opinion Review

Plants are subject to multiple pest attacks during their growing cycle. In order to address consumers’ desire to buy healthy vegetables and fruits, i.e., without chemical residues, and to develop environment-friendly agriculture, major research efforts are being made to find alternative methods to reduce or suppress the use of chemicals. Many methods are currently being tested. Among these methods, some are being tested in order to modify plant physiology to render it less susceptible to pathogen and pest attacks by developing plant immunity. An emerging potentially interesting method that is being studied at this time is mechanical stimuli (MS). Although the number of articles on the effect of MS on plant immunity is still not large, it has been reported that several types of mechanical stimuli induce a reduction of plant susceptibility to pests for different plant species in the case of wounding and non-wounding stimuli. This mini review aims to summarize the knowledge available at this time by raising questions that should be addressed before considering MS as an operable alternative method to increase plant immunity for crop protection.