Preface CHAPTER:0

Plant Protection* is an important branch of Agrl. Science which deals with a wide range of living agents which attack the crop-plants, their detail biology & nature of damage, extent of yield-loss caused by them and their eco-friendly management causing least possible pollution to the environment.

*Plant Protection may be termed as Pestology.

Pestology : The science which deals with the Biology, Ecology, damage & management of pests* is known as Pestology.

Pest may be insect , mite , fungus(fungi) , bacterium(bacteria) , virus(viri) , nematode , rodent , bird , termite , weed , etc.

Scope & Importance :-

“Everything else may wait , but not agriculture .” – Crops cultivation has been continuing from the time immemorial . But , Plant Protection was not considered a necessity by the farmers in those ages , while there were no HYVs and yield was so low . Now , so many HYVs become available and R&D is encouraging culture of two or more than two crops in each & every year from the same field . Value of crop is more higher than old days , from commercial view point . The loss of even a quintal of foodgrain is felt by farmers and they want to check this loss . They have realized there are losses due to pests problem(either infestation or infection otherwise both) and these must be prevented from causing loss – “Prevention is better than cure .”

But , before innovation and discover of chemical pesticides , they tried their best with botanical sources ; eg. margosa(neem) , cowdung , etc. for plant protection . After innovation of chemical pesticides like …

gamaxine(BHC cum HCH) , DDT , etc. one by one ; they started their application . But , day by day due to indiscriminate usage of chemicals , gradually pesticide resistence as well as resurgence became built up inside pests . Thus the fact(incidence) regarding pesticide resistance & resurgence started increasing by leaps and bound and along with it the agroecological balance of food chains among consuming members also started disrupting .

In this circumstances , Plant Protection is the pioneer showing the integrated means as well as eco-friendly means to manage diverse pest problems . Plant Protection is assembled with the knowledges of certain parts of Agricultural science ; viz. Agricultural Entomology , Agricultural Acarology, Phytopathology(Mycology . Bacteriology , Virology , Nematology) & Weed Science .

Therefore , so many new resistant(tolerant) HYVs are being discovered and biopesticides , botanical pesticides , etc, are being discovered day by day in present era due to R&D in agriculture and allied Agriculture – so , scope of Plant Protection and its consequent importance are huge and immense .