In India Where Over 75% Farmers Are Small and Marginal Holders, Livestock Is the Main Source

BioEvolution Vol 2 (1), Feb 2015, ISBN [978-93-83006-04-5], pg 31-37 ECO-FRIENDLY PLANT PROTECTION TECHNOLOGIES FOR FORAGES

Ritu Mawar, A K Mall and S R Kantwa All India Coordinated Research Project on Forage Crops Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute, Jhansi Corresponding Author Email: [email protected]

INTRODUCTION

Fodder crops are the plant species that are cultivated and harvested for feeding the animals in the form of forage, silage and hay. The cultivated forage crops include many plant species such as sorghum, maize, pearl millet, cowpea, guar, berseem, lucerne, oats and several grasses. These forage crops are affected by a large number of diseases and pests. Diseases not only reduce the herbage yield but also affect the nutritional quality as well. Various cultural practices can reduce the infection to some extent; however, if the environmental condition favors the spread of diseases and pests, then use of chemicals or resistant varieties is the only option of management. However, the development of resistant varieties is the most desirable approach in sustainable agricultural system. The All India Coordinated Research Project on Fodder Crops, with its 21 centres covering all the major agro-climatic situations of the country, is engaged in research on all the facets of technology development relating to forage crops. As a result wide range of germplasm material of various fodder crops has been collected and maintained at one or the other centres, such collections provides an excellent opportunity for screening the material for selection and breeding for resistance to major insects, diseases and nematodes.

Pests and diseases have been listed on the basis of their economic importance. Some specific insects and diseases infecting a particular forage crop seems to have a limited endemic areas, whereas others are widely distributed for example intensity of anthracnose, rust, Septoria leaf spot diseases and stem fly of cowpea was found to be more in Karnataka only. Moreover, if there are more than one insect of disease are important on a specific crop their endemic area may vary. In case of lucerne both weevil and aphid is important insect pest, but the later one is more important in Gujarat. Downy mildew cause damage to a number of crops like lucerne, maize, pearl millet and sorghum is widely distributed in southern region of the country.

Some important plant protection technologies were developed by AICRP-FC centres for better yield and quality of forages. An IPM module for lucerne and other management technology for berseem, cowpea, oat and white clover were also developed. More over, it is important that existing gap between fodder requirement and availability can be bridged to considerable extent by avoiding losses caused by biotic stresses. Important pest and diseases as well as the technology generated are summarized below:

PEST PROBLEMS AND LOSSES Among various biotic factors insects and micro-organisms play an important role in forage ecosystem. Pests and disease may lead to depressed fodder production, problems in seed production and even the abandonment of cultivated species. A large number of pests have been found associated with a variety of fodder crops grown in different parts of the country (Table 1). Some of the new diseases have been identified like root rot of berseem and Cephalosporium leaf stripe of oat. It is not possible to enlist each and every pest which might injure a crop (Table 2). Saxena et al, 2002 reviewed the quantitative and qualitative losses caused by biotic stress factors in major forage crops. The sustainability of the fodder production system largely depends upon overcoming biotic stress factors like insect pests, plant pathogens and plant parasitic nematodes. In major forage crops the quantitative and qualitative losses caused by these biological stress factors have been reviewed (Ahmed, et al, 1996; Saxena et

www.giapjournals.org/bioevolution.html 31 BioEvolution Vol 2 (1), Feb 2015, ISBN [978-93-83006-04-5], pg 31-37 al, 2002).Therefore only major ones are covered which have been selected on the basis of their actual or potential economic importance or on their frequency of occurrence. In addition, grasslands normally support and can tolerate large number of pests and recent evidence suggests that that there are some situations where damage is more likely to occur especially during the establishing period of young seedlings. Moreover, grasslands act as reservoir of pests which later can infect/infest cultivated food crops.

COMPONENT OF NON-CHEMICAL MEANS OF FORAGE CROP PROTECTION: Disease and Pest surveillance and forewarning: Crop health surveillance is an importance component of IPM system. Pest and disease surveillance involves the monitoring and severity, auxiliary crop information and other relevant data for decision making. In the present day context surveillance focuses primarily on decision making for the proper timing of pesticidal usage there by recommending the use of chemicals only if needed and also to reduce it to the bare minimum, thus avoiding unnecessary use in the agricultural system. For surveillance activities may help in identifying potentially, important diseases and pests early enough and indicate that the pest/ disease feared by farmers may not actually, warrant intensive crop protection. Thus surveillance along with other logistic support can be efficient tool of pest/disease forewarning.

Hot spot testing: All India co-ordinated research projects identified several locations in the country where pest/diseases are endemic. In forage crops Hisar, Ludhiana and Jhansi have been identified for testing the germplasm lines of berseem for root/stem rot disease and Helicoverpa testing resistance. Similarly Anand, Jhansi and Jabalpur for root rot of cowpea. Sick plot development at hot spot location has been recommended for testing the disease resistance. A large country like ours endowed with various types of climate and weather provides an opportunity to evaluate the host resistance at these sports.

Cultural methods: Although resistance varieties and chemical treatment are very important method of pest control, their efficacy can be improved, made more efficient, economical as well as environmentally acceptable by modification of cultural practices. The judicious use of fertilizers, adjustment of sowing time, proper soil and water management, crop rotation, maturing, spacing, sanitation and proper weed management help in reducing the losses due to pests thereby resulting in better yield. Deep summer ploughing and soil solarization have been reported to reduce incidence of soil inhabiting pests and diseases. Pandey et al., (2004) found that cultural practices like deep ploughing and burning results into decrease in diseases & pest of intensive fodder production system. Intercropping of mustard in wheat and Barley was found to reduce number of cyst/ plant and nematode infestation in barley (Rajvanshi etal., 2002).

Sanitation: Sanitation is another effective method of controlling the pests. In this method, it is a common practice to bum diseased stubbles. Annual burning of grassland has been found to reduce several diseases and pests like leaf spot and rust in grasses, anthracnose disease of stylosanthes and defoliators. Practices like removal of crop debris and regulating the irrigation water from fields with diseased crop, also helps in reducing the primary inoculums and spread of the disease. This is especially important in case of soil borne diseases caused by species of Fusarium, Verticillium, Rhizoctonia, Selerotium and Sclerotinia etc. Seed health:

www.giapjournals.org/bioevolution.html 32 BioEvolution Vol 2 (1), Feb 2015, ISBN [978-93-83006-04-5], pg 31-37 Seed is one of the most important inputs in crop production. Apart from replacement of old and obsolete varieties, many plant diseases and insect pests can be checked by the use of the healthy seed. Several crops suffer from diseases that are internally or externally seed borne. By properly identifying the disease and rogueing those in the seed production plots will permit the production quality and healthy seed. Rogueing and burning infected plants is a routine operation in healthy seed production. In

Organic amendments: Organic amendments like application of green manure, FYM, crop residues and various oil-cakes are the one of the important means of plant protection management. These instead of improving the plant health serve as very good substrates for the multiplication of soil micro-flora. Many of them have been found to act as a bicontrol agent to the plant disease causing organisms by hyper-parasitism and competition. Incorporation of selected on farm-weeds after partial decomposition reduced the viability of the sclerotial population of M. phaseolina in the soil and the incidence of dry root rot in clusterbean (guar) in the field under rainfed conditions (Mawar and Lodha, 2006).

Biological control: The natural mortality is the most desirable method in avoiding pest out breaks; hence, use of parasite and predators is another method which can be useful in managing the diseases. In this method of diseases control care has to be taken so that the organism used for biological control should not be pathogenic to the crop concerned or to other crops that are likely to be grown in the cropping sequence. Several examples of antagonism by micro-organisms to the plant pathogens have been studied. Root rot of berseem caused by Rhizoctonia bataticola are effectively controlled by the use of Trichoderma harzianum and T.viride applied as seed treatment (5 gm/ kg of seed). Beside diseases control these organisms have been found to enhance the plant growth and nodulation in roots there by significant increase in green fodder yield.

Disease resistance: Resistance can be defined as the inherent capability of host plant to reduce the change and degree of infection and disease development. It is conditioned by several internal and external factors. There are several kinds of disease resistance. Vander plank in 1963 came out with the term vertical resistance; any variety that expresses a high degree of resistance to certain specific strain of the pathogen is considered to be vertically resistant. This type of resistance also implies a differential interaction between varieties of the host and races of the pathogens. Vertical resistance to specific races is generally governed by a single dominant gene or by a few dominant genes. The horizontal resistance reduces the rate of disease spread and is evenly spread against all races of the pathogens. In cases of forage crop diseases these types of studies are lacking. The races of pathogens have not been studies till now. Screening against particular pathogens is being in progress in most of the forage crops. Germplasm collections of several other forage crops have also been screened for identification of resistance. Storage infestations of grain pests especially Bruchus on legumes and Trogoderma on cereals need to be taken care using non chemical means. Shah et al, (2001) reported four cultivars viz. AC-120, AC-134, AC-351 and AC-354 of lablab bean (Dolicos purpureous Linn.) was resistant to aphids (Aphis craccivora Koch.). Entries IL-1184-1 and IL-51-1 were reported to be tolerant to yellow mosaic virus (YMV) in moth bean (Bhaskar et al, 1990). Seven accessions of cowpea exhibited multiple pest resistant against major insect’s viz. semilooper, flea beetle and grasshoppers (Shah et al, 2011).

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) As obvious from the preceding discussions, in many, if not most of the cases, various control measures by themselves are not free from one or the other limitations to provide safe, economically acceptable and efficient in pest population suppression in

www.giapjournals.org/bioevolution.html 33 BioEvolution Vol 2 (1), Feb 2015, ISBN [978-93-83006-04-5], pg 31-37 forage cropping systems. Our past experience in the pest control has indicated that no single method is successful. With agriculture becoming intensive, the commercial control of plant disease has become very complex and the extent of crop losses inflicted has increased. Attempts are also being made through All India Coordinated Research Project on Forage Crops to collect information on various factors like pest status, damage thresholds in various agro-climatic regions of the country.

Conclusive Remarks: It can be concluded that although significant progress have been made, however much remains to be done before existing and new IPM options can be used in an optimal manner; therefore there is a need for further research on some of the following aspects of IPM considered to be more critical and significant. (1) Research on the applied ecology through detail studies of population dynamics to provide the biological basis for determining appropriate management tactics for the economic suppression of pest species. (2) The compatibility of control measures is needed to be tested during the early stages of an IPM programme. (3) Identification and utilization of multiple pest and disease controlling agents (chemical, varieties) capable of managing insects, nematodes and pathogens.

REFERENCES: 1. Ahmad, S.T., Pandey, K. C. and Bhaskar, R.B. 1996. Integrated pest management for increased forage production, Indian Farming, 45: 34 - 37. 2. Bhaskar, R.B., Singh U.P. and Ahmad, S.T. 1990. Evaluation of promising moth bean cultivars for yield and quality parameters and resistance to yellow mosaic virus, Range Management and Agroforestry, 11: 41-43. 3. Mawar, R. and Lodha, S. 2006. Relative efficacy of on-farm weeds as soil- amendment for managing dry root rot of clusterbean in an arid environment, Phytopathologia Mediterranea, 45: 215-224 4. Rajvanshi, I., Mathur, B.N. and Sharma, G. L. 2002. Effect of Inter-cropping on incidence of Heterodera avenae in wheat and barley crops, Annals of Plant Protection Sciences, 10:406-407. 5. Saxena, P., Shah N.K., Hasan N., Pandey K.C. Faruqui S.A., Bhaskar R.B., Padmavati C.H., Roy, S. and Azmi M.I. 2002. Forage Plant Protection, IGFRI, Jhansi. pp 38. 6. Shah, N.K., Sahay, G. and Tyagi, P. K. 2011. Field selection for resistance in cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L) Walp.) to major insect pests. Range Management and Agroforestry, 32(2) 138-140. 7. Shah, N.K., Pandey, K.C. and Singh, D.N. 2001. Field selection of resistance in Dolichos bean (Lablab purpureus L.) to bean aphid (Aphis craccivora Koch.), Indian Journal of Aphidology , 15 (1): 153-155.

Berseem (Trifolium alexandrinum)

Root rot complex Rhizoctonia solani, Fusarium semitactum, Tylenchorhynchus vulgaris Stem rot Sclerotinia trifoliorum Pod borer Helicoverpa armigera Stunt nermatode Tylenchorrhyncus vulgaris, T.mashhoodi Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata)

Root rot Macrophomina phaseolina Mosaic disease Cowpea mosaic virus

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Flea beetles Pagria signata Semilooper Plusia nigrisign Leaf hoppers Empoasca kerri Root knot nematode Meloidogyne incognita Reniform nematode Rotylenchulus reniformis Pigeon pea cyst nematode Heterodera cajani Lucerne (Medicago sativa)

Downy mildew Peronospora trifolii Rust Uromyces striatus Common leaf spot Pseudopeziza medicagenis Lucerne weevil Hypera postica Aphids Acyrthosiphon pisum and Theriophis trifolii f.maculata Stem nematode Ditylenchus dipsaci Lesion nematode Pratylenchus penetrans Root-knot nematode Meloidogyne spp. Clover cystnematode Heterodera trifolii Guar (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba)

Bacterial blight Xanthomonas campestris pv.cyamopsidis Yellow mite Polyphagotarsoemus latur and P.datus Root knot nematode M.incognita Reniform nematode Rotylenchulus reniformis Stylos (Stylosanthes guianensis)

Anthracnose Colletotrichum gloesporioides Root rot Sclerotium rolfsii Clitoria (Clitorea ternatia)

Root knot nematode M. incognita Sorghum, Maize and Bajra (Sorghum bicolor, Zea mays and Pennisetum typhoides)

Anthracnose Colletotrichum graminicola Sooty stripe Ramulisporia sorghi Zonate leaf spot Gloeocercospora sorghi Downy mildew Scleropsora sorghi Shoot fly Atherigona varia soccata Stem borer Chilo partellus Aphids Rhapalosiphum maidis Sorghum mildge Contarinia sorghicola Army worm Mythimna separata, Spodoptera exigua Sorghum cyst nematode Heterodera sorghi Maize cyst nematode H.zeae Stunt nematode Tylenchrhynchus spp. Lession nematode Pratylenchus spp. Oats (Avena sativa)

Leaf blotch Helminthossporium avenae Crown rust Puccinia coronata Stem rust Puccinia graminis avena Sclerotial wilt Sclerotium rolfsii Aphids Rhapalosiphum maidis Cyst nematode Heterodera avenae Range grasses

Rust Puccinia and Uromyces spp. Leaf spots Phylohora, Curvularia, Pyricularia, Scrossporium, Colletotrichum spp. Grasshoppers Hieroglyphus nigrorepletus, Catantops pinguis, Oedaleus abruptus, Chrotogonus trachypterus, Aelopus tamulus, Colemania sp., Oxya sp., Locusta migratoria, Attractomorpha sp. Cyst nematode Heterodera avenae, H.sorghi, H.zeae, H.mothi, H.graminis, H.cyperi, H.sacchari, H.delvi Root-knot nematode Meloidogyne spp. Seed gall nematode Anguina spp. Lesion nematode Pratylenchus spp. Stunt nematode Tylenchorhynchus spp. Lance nematode Hoplolaimus spp. Spiral nematode Helicotylenchus spp. Soo-babool (Leucaena leucocephalla) Gumosis Fusarium solani Pink disease Corticium salamanicolor Psyllids Heteropsylla cubana Table 1. Major Insects and pathogens of important fodder crops Crop Insect pest Loss (% ) Sorghum Shoot fly - Atherigona soccata 30-60 Midge - Contarinia sorghicola 30-50 Shoot fly - Calocoris angustatus 10-15 Aphid - Rapalosiphum maidis 10-15 Army worm - Mythimna separata 10-15 Grey weevil - Myllocerus sp. 5-10 Blister beetles - Mylabris sp. 10-15 Maize Pink stem borer - Sesamia inferens 25-75 Hoppers - Pyrilla sp. 20 Jassid - Zygnidia manaliensis 5-10 Beans / Cowpea Thrips - Thrips tabaci 5-10 Stem fly - Ophiomyia sp. 50-72 Bihar hairy cater pillar - Spilosoma sp. 50-70 Gridle beetle - Obereopsis brevis 80 Leaf folders - Hedylepta indica 40-50 Gesonia gemma 30 Jassid - Apheline maculosa 21 (Adopted from: Dhaliwal and Arora 1996, Puri et al., 1999) Table2: key insect pests and losses caused

Lucerne Rust Berseem Root rot

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