Innovative Management Practices for Insect Pest and Diseases and to Reconcile the Plant Health in Agro-Ecosystem

Considering the feeding of huge global population in future, it is as important to check crop losses by the pest and diseases, so as to increase the crop production. The chemical-intensive pest management approach, though offered a direct and visible control of the pests, harboured much worse and deep-rooted ecological threats to our life and living. Integrated pest management, since its conceptualization in the early 1960s, has come across a long way to expand its boundary and include various approaches and tools. The objective of the pest and disease management has shifted gradually from a mere economic point of view to the ecological aspects and human health. The agro-ecosystem analysis-based IPM has capacitated the practicing farmers to take the central role of a decision-maker. Manipulation of host resistance and conservation and augmentation of natural enemies are now pivotal for IPM. The recent advancements in biotechnological tools have helped us in quicker identification and characterization of a new or invasive pest. Use of transgenic resistant varieties, gene silencing, gene pyramiding, semiochemicals, sterile insects, accurate weather forecasting, and disease prediction models have strengthened and diversified our arsenals to counter any epidemiological situation. However, we have to remain prepared to counter the climate change and its impact on the pest pathogen dynamics. And for that, we have to continuously evolve our pest management approaches with the ever-evolving pests and pathogens in the agro-ecosystem.