 Welcome back, we will continue our discussion on eco-friendly methods of pest management once again. Next important eco-friendly method is tillage, you know fall flowing particularly is most useful for some of the dreaded insects like helicoverpa, reded hiricaterpillar, root crabs and so on particularly this fall flowing you know that is flowing or summer flowing after the crop is over helps to bring down the population considerably. Say in case of helicoverpa you can see immediately after the tractor flowing lot of the pupil stages which were hibernating inside the soil are exposed to high sunlight thereby we see the death of the pupae or they are also exposed to lot of predatory birds thereby the population carry over from one season to next season can be prevented considerably. Coming back to other methods of tillage we know very well the grasshopper lays its egg always near the bund tilling near the bund again exposes the grasshopper eggs which are in masses to high sunlight and also to predation so thereby the natural reduction of the egg population can be seen then in case of melon and mango fruit fly which is again a major pest normally these fruit fly after causing damage in the larva stage they drop down to soil and pupae it in the soil below the litter. So raking up and hoeing below the trees will expose these pupae of melon fly for again natural predation and also affects the microclimate of the pupil stage which is very much required for its pupil completion so that the pest population can be reduced considerably. You know in case of sugarcane there is one serious pest called early shoot borer particularly in the irrigated belts if shown during September this causes loss to the tune of 50% economic damage this early shoot borer has some behavioral characteristics it enters the larvae after a hatching it enters the stem of the sugarcane at the first inter nodal region of the sugarcane from the ground level by some means if you cover this first inter nodal region which is soft and spongy with soil you know the entry of the larvae can be prevented. So this can be done by light earthing up with agronomic practices using a simple hoe and then lastly weeds, weeds serve as an important alternate host for majority of the insects during the off season whenever the main crop is over these weeds they continue to there be there in the field situation one of the classic example that we can see is the continuation of a helicover or major of population. We see during April and May one common weed which is grown across the country that is Lagusca mollus all along the bunds it supports huge egg population as well as the larval survival during that high temperature one generation is completed on this weed host and then when the new crop is shown automatically the larval population migrates to the host crop and then goes on multiplying. So removal of weed becomes an important eco-friendly tactics here then coming back to other methods of the eco-friendly technology includes you know various cropping systems it may be an intercropping, trap cropping, border cropping, banker cropping, eco-fist cropping, polycropping will try to understand each one with some classic examples. You know the main objective of these intercropping is diverting the insect population from the host crop to some other crop. That is a simple logic involved in intercropping again one of the best technique is trap cropping as the name itself indicates a trap cropping trapping the insect population to one particular crop insects do have preference for some crops when choice has been given. So that behavioral phenomena can be taken to our management advantage for example in case of cotton and bendy insects prefer bendy over cotton. So bendy as a short of you know involving small areas it can be shown there are recommendations across the country that every 10 rows of cotton one row of bendy is cultivated. So that all the insects which are supposed to go over to cotton will go over to bendy and we can have the effective management strategy for bendy on that one row thereby we can reduce the pesticide load on cotton as well as the effective management of the best population on trap crop. We have classical examples of trap cropping in various crops recommended so far. If you see this table you know mustard is one of the important trap crop for in case of cabbage for managing the best population particularly the diamond back moth. In case of ground mat you know castor or sunflower which are broadleaved serves as a trap crop to attract these podoptera litura egg masses because of their broadleaf egg masses can be identified easily and immediately after hatching for about 10 days these egg masses turn to larvae and they skeletonize which can be seen from a longer distance and they can be mechanically killed. And then in case of tomato merry gold serves as a trap crop particularly for helicoverpa egg trapping. So this is one very commonly recommended by various organizations. Similarly in field beans chrysanthemum serves as a trap crop for trapping serpentine leaf miner that is lyriomiza trifoli which is one of the invaded pest to our country. Then in case of rice and potato of late nematode has become a major problem. Merry gold all along the border of the rice field serves as a trap crop in case of rice. Similarly in case of maize sorghum acts as a trap crop for trapping the corn stem borer attack. Similarly in case of cowpea chrysanthemum serves as a trap crop for trapping bear hery caterpillar egg and larval population. So as I mentioned already in case of cotton bendy is one of the important trap crop for trapping almost all the sucking pest as well as the bull worm population. Moving on to intercropping intercropping is nothing but growing two crops in the same space in a given in the same time you know taking maximum profit out of the limited area and the limited time in other words. For example you know in case of sorghum and redgram a general recommendation is every three rows after redgram one row of sorghum is cultivated mainly because both these two crops will not compete for the nutrient status which is there in the soil and sorghum as we know is a shallow rooted crop whereas redgram is a deep rooted crop. So that is why there is no competition and by the time redgram starts flowering sorghum will be harvested and more than that the insects which attack sorghum will not attack a redgram. So in that way the carry over population from one crop to another crop is not there. So because of this there are many advantages coupled with intercropping. If you see these advantages there is an additional yield income certainly because two crops who are cultivating in the same space at the same time and then there will be one crop serves as an insurance against the another because of a failure of odd abnormal weather conditions and then the soil fertility most important is maintained because the nutrient uptake is from all layers of the soil. So there is no competition for these two crops as I said earlier. Then another thing is reduction in soil runoff and control of weeds which is another important factor they suppress the weed population. Then intercrop always provides shade and support to some of the other crops which harbor lot of natural enemies which in turn check the insect population and then utilizes resources very efficiently. Then intercropping with cash crops is again in a highly advantageous position because we get higher net profit. Then the last advantage we have is it avoids inter crop competition and thus higher number of crop plants are grown in a given unit area. Of course this technique do have some disadvantages to mention few yield may decrease in some cases for example in case of safflower and bengalgram. There is an yield reduction when these two inter crops are cultivated simultaneously because some of the pests here are common to both the crops thereby there will be an economic damage in some situations not in all situations. Then management seems to be a difficulties issue having different cultural practices. This is another disadvantageous issue and then in addition to that you know we may need some improved implements which can improve the efficiency in one crop but that cannot be used because there will be another crop simultaneously in the same field. Then in some situations harvesting may be a difficult task because of these two crops existence. Another cropping technology that we can use it for insect population suppression is barrier crops. You know there are some crops which grow tall like sorghum, napier grass, maize some of these tall crops can be used as a barrier crops for example you know these are all living barrier crops as I said you know sorghum, johnson grass, maize and then elephant grass these barrier crops will not allow the wind migrated sucking pest population particularly aphids. You know aphids are the important vectors of many of the viral diseases. They are non-persistent virus carrying vectors so they move from one field to another field with the help of wind only. So because of these barrier crops they come and settle on say in case of cotton if sorghum is there or maize is there as a barrier crop maybe just one or two rows all these aphids come and settle on the barrier crop because of their height and the movement to cotton crop can be prevented thereby you will be preventing the vector incidence to the major crop that is cotton. So here in one photograph which you can very clearly see sorghum is the one of the major crop and the barrier crop is a napier grass we are using. So sorghum you know in the early stage suffers severe incidence of aphids. So aphid as I said is wind transmitted because of this napier grass which is height of around 2 to 3 feet prevents the settling down of aphids on the sorghum crop in the early stage. Another technology is border cropping. So it is almost barrier cropping similar to that but it has other advantages like it can also act as a trap crop to trap some of the life stages of the insect. It can also act as a banker crop to support the natural enemies which in turn checks the insect pest population. It can also act as an echo feast crop that is in other words called as a sacrificing crop you know because of high susceptibility the total death of the particular crop is there because it is grown in a small area we need not bother we call that as a sacrifice crop. Then so as I said maize around cotton may decrease the sucking pest population in general and then caster in ground net few seeds of caster or ground net and cotton field which attracts this podopter population thereby the population on the main crop can be prevented. So you have a photograph seeing here the maize acting as a barrier crop to cotton crop which reduces the early sucking pest population which otherwise would have resulted in economic damage to the cotton. In the next class we will again discuss some more eco friendly management tactics. Thank you.