Скачать или смотреть MANUAL BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL CONTROL MEASURES ON PESTS AND DISEASES

Pests are destructive insects, birds, or animals that damage crops, livestock, or stored produce. Diseases are illnesses caused by pathogens such as fungi, bacteria, or viruses affecting plants or animals, leading to reduced agricultural yields.

Pest and disease control involves various methods used by farmers to reduce or eliminate pests and disease agents to protect crops and livestock. These control measures are broadly classified into manual, biological, and chemical methods.

📌 Manual Control Measures
These involve the use of human labour and simple tools to remove or destroy pests and infected plants.

1. Hand Picking
Farmers manually pick visible pests like caterpillars, locusts, and beetles from plants and destroy them to prevent further infestation.

2. Uprooting and Burning Infected Plants
Diseased plants or plant parts showing symptoms like wilting or spotting are uprooted and burnt to stop the spread of crop diseases such as maize streak virus or tobacco mosaic.

3. Use of Traps
Simple traps such as sticky boards or baited jars are used to catch pests like rodents, fruit flies, and grasshoppers, reducing their numbers in farms or storage areas.

4. Crop Rotation
Growing different types of crops seasonally disrupts the lifecycle of pests and soil-borne diseases that specialize in specific crops. For example, alternating maize with legumes like beans.

📌 Biological Control Measures
This involves using natural predators, parasites, or pathogens to regulate pest populations.

5. Introducing Natural Predators
Organisms such as ladybird beetles are introduced to control aphid populations, while fish like tilapia can help control mosquito larvae in irrigation canals.

6. Use of Pathogens
Applying microbial agents like Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) to control caterpillars and worms as the bacteria infect and kill the pests without harming other organisms.

7. Encouraging Natural Ecosystem Balance
Maintaining biodiversity by planting a variety of crops and preserving hedges and trees attracts beneficial insects and birds that feed on pests, reducing pest outbreaks naturally.

📌 Chemical Control Measures
These involve the application of manufactured chemicals such as pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides to control pests and diseases.

8. Application of Insecticides
Farmers use chemicals like Karate or Deltamethrin to kill insect pests such as armyworms and locusts before they damage crops extensively.

9. Spraying of Fungicides
Crops like tomatoes and potatoes are sprayed with fungicides such as Mancozeb to prevent fungal diseases like blight, especially during humid conditions.

10. Rodent Poisoning and Fumigation
In storage facilities, rat poison (rodenticides) and fumigation gases are used to kill rodents and storage pests like weevils and moths, preventing post-harvest losses.