Description

ABOUT THE BOOK

The extensive use of chemical pesticides and fertilisers to manage pests and soil fertility has created serious environmental problems with direct impact on the welfare of human beings and animals. The toxic residues in the food and associated environmental pollution resulting from the application of pesticides and fertilisers during the crop production, is creating serious health problems. Growing public concern over potential health hazards of synthetic pesticides and also steep increase in cost of cultivation/low profit making by farmers has led to the exploration of eco-friendly pest and soil fertility management tactics such as use of biopesticide and biofertilisers.

Bio pesticides are living organisms which can intervene the life cycle of insect pests in such a way that the crop damage is minimized. Bio-fertilizer is a substance which contains living microorganisms which when applied to the soil; a seed or plant surface colonizes the rhizosphere and promotes growth by increasing the supply or availability of nutrients to the host plant. In principle, biopesticides & biofertilizers are less expensive and are more environmentally-friendly than chemical fertilizers. Looking to the need of environmental and health  problems with synthetic chemicals the 6^th deans’ committee of I CAR recommended a new course on biopesticides and biofertiliser to equip our graduates in the emerging technology.

I am confident that this book will fulfil the course requirement of graduate students of all the SAUs and agricultural colleges following the recommendations of 6^th Deans’ Committee of ICAR. It will also be useful for the extension of biopesticides and  biofertilizer usage to a large number of farmers for improvement of crop yield and other benefits, while minimizing environmental pollution from agrochemical inputs.

CONTENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

L.L.Somani is Retired Director Resident Instructions, MPUAT, Udaipur. He has over 400 research and technical articles to his credit. He has authored/edited over 165 scholarly books in various field of agriculture. Prof. Somani has been honored with several academic excellence awards for his outstanding achievements.