Hand Book Of Biological Control In Horticultural Crops (Biomanagement Of Diseases‪)‬

Productivity of horticultural crops in India is relatively low compared to other countries. Of the several factors responsible for lower productivity of horticultural crops, fungal, bacterial and viral/phytoplasma diseases are considered as important limiting factors. Some disease problems (bunchy top and Panama disease on banana, guava wilt, bacterial blight of pomegranate, bacterial wilt in Solanaceous vegetables, viral diseases of vegetable and fruit crops) are of national importance which causes significant losses to horticultural crops. Diseases of horticultural crops continue to cause losses of about 10% of the crop yields worth more than Rs. 15,000 crores annually. More than 9,600 MT of technical grade fungicides are used annually to manage the diseases in India. Considering the limitations of chemical control of plant diseases, there has been a growing awareness to develop biological control measures which brings about a reasonably good degree of disease reduction and at the same time ensure sustainability of production, cost effectiveness and healthy environment. Commercial scale production of biopesticides for the biological control of diseases in the recent past has been quite intense. Several package of practices have been developed nationally and internationally for disease management using commercially available bio-inputs especially microorganisms. The efforts aimed at increasing the naturally occurring biotic agents against the diseases, both quantitatively and qualitatively can be termed as biological control. The information on biomanagement of diseases (fungal, bacterial and viral/phytoplasma) of horticultural crops (fruits, vegetables, plantation, spice, tuber, ornamental, medicinal and aromatic crops) is very much scattered. There is no book at present which comprehensively and exclusively deals with the above aspects on horticultural crops. The present book deals with management of diseases in horticultural crops in detail using biological (antagonistic bacteria, antagonistic fungi, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi) and integrated methods (bioagents, botanicals, fungicides, cultural and physical methods). The book is extensively illustrated with excellent quality photographs enhancing the quality of publication. The book is written in lucid style, easy to understand language along with adoptable recommendations involving eco-friendly components of IDM.