BP_Course_Lecture_2
BP_Course_Lecture_2
Dr. S. J. Rahman
Principal Scientist & University Head (Entomology)
AICRP on Biological Control of Crop Pests
Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University
Rajendranagar, Hyderabad – 500 030
In the present WTO regime, quality of the agricultural produce has gained
importance apart from quantity produced. The globalization of agriculture necessitated
Indian farmer to follow Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) in crop protection through
Integrated Pest Management (IPM). The globalized competition led the farmer to adopt
Sustainable agriculture approaches to improve the quality of the produce without
chemical residues. In agriculture, plant protection is vital area, which considerably
influence the yield attributes. An enormous amount of crop losses are caused due to
insect pests, diseases and weeds in several of the commonly grown commodities in India
ranging from grain crops like cereals, pulses & oilseeds to cash crops like cotton, jute and
several of the vegetables and fruits. Till the last decade, pesticidal applications were used
to be the prime measures for insect pest and disease control in many of the crops.
However, due to several of the disadvantages associated with pesticidal use such as
residues in commodities, resistance development to pesticides in insect and also most
importantly the enormous amount of environmental hazards caused by pesticides, the
farmer never got the real benefit out of the chemicals what he was using in the name of
pestcides. On the other hand, due to indiscriminate use of pesticides several of the non-
target beneficial organisms like natural enemies, honeybees and other such useful fauna
are adversely affected causing ecological imbalance resulting into unaccountable
amounts of deleterious effects on “Mother Nature”.
The efforts aimed at increasing the naturally occurring biotic agents against the
pest, both qualitatively and quantitatively can be termed as Biological Control and the
pest management programmes where these inputs form the core component is designated
as Bio Intensive Pest Management (BIPM). Use of micro organisms as Bio Pesticides is
one of the most effective, economical & sustainable method of pest management in the
recent years.
The micro organisms exploited in biological control of insect pests are (a) Insect
viruses (b) Bacteria (c) Entomo Pathogenic Fungi (d) Entomo Pathogenic Nematodes and
other organisms like Protozoans and rickettsia etc. while several antagonistic fungi and
bacteria are being successfully used in minimizing the plant disease incidence. Nematode
pest management by using biotic agents is also one of the most promising areas and
gaining much deserved importance in the current scenario of sustainable agriculture. The
most commonly used bio agents as Bio Pesticides are:
Granulosis Virus (GV) and Cyto Plasmic Viruses (CPV): are being extensively used
against insect pests of sugarcane.
(b) Bacteria: Most commonly and widely used bio pesticide in insect control operations
is Bacillus thuringiensis. This bacterium is highly effective against several insect pests of
Lepidoptera. They cause disease due to which insect turns black and die. The bacteria
come in several commercial formulations such as Dipel, Delfin, Halt, Spicturin, Biolep,
BioAsp etc.
(c) Fungi: : Several fungi such as, Beauveria bassiana, Metarhizium anisopliae and
Lecanicillium (Verticillium) lecanii are used against important pests like gram pod borer,
tobacco cater pillar and sucking pests like thrips, aphids and mealy bugs. The fungi
develop hyphae inside insect system as a result insect dies due to mechanical congestions.
This mode of action makes these organisms to perfectly suit to the needs of sustainable
agriculture. In certain cases they produce toxins to kill the insect.
(d) Entomopathogenic nematodes: These nematodes harbour certain bacteria which act
as toxins to insect systems. Mainly exploited entomo pathogenic nematodes in insect
control operations are – Heterorhabditis sp, Steinernema sp.
Other than these microorganisms protozoans such as Variomorpha sp and others
were also found to be effective against insect pests and can be effectively be incorporated
as tools in sustainable agriculture.
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