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Agro-ecological Pest Management

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Sustainable Intensification of Crop Production

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Abstract

Agro-ecologists opine that interaction between healthy soils and healthy plants is fundamental to agro-ecologically based pest management. They also encourage biodiversification as the primary technique to evoke regulation of pests sustainably. Besides regulation of pest populations through enhanced activity of biological-control agents, biodiversity performs a variety of ecological services including the production of food and recycling of nutrients in the agro-ecosystems. One of the simplest forms of biodiversification such as legume-based crop rotations can simultaneously optimize soil fertility and pest regulation. Crop rotations enhance yields by interrupting insect, disease, and weed life cycles. The microbiological activity of the soil (population of fungal and bacterial antagonists and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi that better resist pest attack) is also enhanced by crop rotations. Agro-ecologically based pest management makes full use of natural and cultural practices and methods, including host resistance and biological control. In order to stabilize the population of pest species throughout the food web, the new designs should concentrate on managing the farm environment through ecosystem enhancements (i.e., landscape ecology), crop attributes, or other means.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Entomology & Nematology, Indian Inst. of Horticultural Research, Bangalore, Karnataka, India

    P. Parvatha Reddy

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  1. P. Parvatha Reddy
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Reddy, P.P. (2016). Agro-ecological Pest Management. In: Sustainable Intensification of Crop Production. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2702-4_18

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