Nature Microbiology 2, 17120 (2017); published 25 July 2017; corrected 31 July 2017.

The original version of this Editorial referred to a set of five diseases (wheat stem rust, rice blast, corn smut, soybean fungi and potato late blight) as fungal diseases, which was incorrect as potato late blight is caused by an oomycete. In addition, ‘soybean fungi’ has been replaced with ‘soybean rust’. We apologize for any confusion that may have been caused; all versions of the Editorial have now been modified to rectify these errors.