Innovative Pest Management Approaches for the 21st Century

Several Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approaches are available for managing pests of varied kinds, including individual and integrated methods for pest suppression. Recently the focus has shifted to pest management tools that act on insect systems selectively, are compatible with the environment, and are not harmful for ecosystems. Other approaches target specific biochemical and physiological aspects of insect metabolism, and involve biotechnological and genetic manipulation. Still other approaches include the use of nanotechnology, endophytes, optical and sonic manipulation to detect and control pest insects.

Unfortunately, conventional forms of pest management do not focus on technology transfer to the ground level workers and farmers. As a result, farmers are incurring huge losses of crops and revenues. This book highlights the importance of using communication tools in pest management and demonstrates some success stories of utilizing automated unmanned technologiesin this context.  

The content is divided into three sections, the first of which, “Pest Population Monitoring: Modern Tools,” covers long and short-range pest population monitoring techniques and tools such as satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles/drones, remote sensing, digital tools like GIS, GPS for mapping, lidar, mobile apps, software systems, artificial diet designs and functional diversity of info-chemicals. The second section of the book is devoted to “Emerging Areas in Pest Management” and offers a glimpse of diversified tactics that have been developed to contain and suppress pest populations such as endophytes, insect vectors of phytoplasma, Hymenopterans parasitoids, mass production and utilization of NPV etc.  In turn, the third section focuses on “Integrated Pest Management” and presents farming situations that illustrate how research in diversified aspects has helped to find solutions to specific pest problems, and how some new and evolving tactics can be practically implemented. Given its scope, the book offers a valuable asset for entomology and plant pathology researchers, students of zoology and plant protection, and readers whose work involves agriculture, horticulture, forestry and other ecosystems. 

Dr. Akshay Kumar Chakravarthy, Head and Principal Scientist (ret.), Division of Entomology and Nematology, is the author of numerous books and over 300 scientific papers and 60 chapters on entomology and natural history. His interests include insects, birds, bats, rodents and mammals. With nearly four decades of experience in teaching and research, Dr. Chakravarthy has been the principal investigator for over 35 research projects. Holding a Ph.D. from Punjab Agricultural University and a fellow of the IARI, New Delhi, he is a member of several national and international scientific associations, referee, reviewer and editor for several national and international journals. A field-orientated, widely travelled biologist, Dr. Chakravarthy is actively investigating novel approaches to integrated pest management, host plant interaction, vertebrate pest management, biodiversity and environmental conservation issues. He is author of several significant book contributions on this theme.