Theory and Practice of Integrated Pest Management

Book excerpt: The dominance of insects in the world fauna has made them the humanity's greatest rival for the world's food resources, both directly by eating the plants cultivated for food and indirectly as vectors of pathogens attacking these plants. Agricultural scientists and especially entomologists have strived hard to develop a diversity of cultural, mechanical, biological and chemical weapons during the last more than two centuries to gain dominance over insects. However, there is evidence that insect pest problems have escalated with an increasing cropping intensity and with the use of agrochemicals inherent in modern agriculture. Consequently, Indian plant protection scientists have intensified research on the development of pest management tactics and effective pest management systems have been designed for all the important crops in the country. This book, consisting of 29 chapters, draws together the diverse literature on the subject of insect pest management in agriculture and contains contributions written by scientists having extensive experience with insect pest problems in Indian agriculture. The first half of the book is devoted to the principles and components of pest management including factors affecting pest populations, construction of life tables, coevolution of insects and plants, pest forecasting, pesticides, IGRs, botanicals, entomopathogenic nematodes and molecular approaches, etc. The different tactics for the management of major insect pests of principal agricultural crops of India, viz. rice, maize, wheat, forage crops, cotton, sugarcane, vegetables, fruits, oilseeds, pulse crops, jute, mesta and tobacco have been discussed in the second half of the book. The book contains a wealth of information on all aspects of insect pest management in agriculture under Indian conditions and would prove indispensable for students, teachers and researchers in agricultural entomology in India and other Asian countries.