Forecasting Models for Plant Diseases: Advances, Applications and Future Perspectives

Plant disease forecasting plays an important role in modern crop protection by enabling early disease prediction and supporting optimized management decisions. With the rapid development of digital agriculture, artificial intelligence, and environmental monitoring technologies, forecasting systems have evolved from traditional empirical and mechanistic models to machine learning, deep learning, multi-source data fusion, and hybrid forecasting frameworks. Unlike previous reviews that mainly focused on specific model types, decision support systems, or disease recognition technologies, this review provides a comprehensive synthesis of different forecasting approaches and their practical applications. The strengths and limitations of various models are comparatively analyzed in terms of predictive performance, interpretability, fungicide reduction potential, and practical applicability. In addition, recent advances in climate-driven disease forecasting, precision disease management, and intelligent decision support systems are discussed. Finally, current challenges and future directions, including AI-mechanistic model integration, multi-disease forecasting, IoT and remote sensing data fusion, and climate-adaptive forecasting systems, are highlighted to support the development of sustainable and intelligent crop protection strategies.