Sucking pests of oilseed crops.

Abstract

Oilseed crops had been integrated into human and animal diets due to their nutrient compositions. The majority of the oilseed meal consists of proteins and high contents of essential amino acids which are beneficial to human health and wellbeing. The major oilseed crops include groundnut, soybean, rapeseed-mustard, sesame, sunflower, castor, safflower, linseed andniger. Oilseed crops are more susceptible to pests than cereals. Among the pests, sucking insect pests are very important and cause direct damage and also acts as vectors of several viral diseases. For getting higher productivity of oilseeds one of the key factors is the proper pest management. The effective pest management depends on the correct identification of the pests and nature, extent and symptoms of the damage caused by them. Besides, to identify the weak-link of a pest, proper knowledge of its biology is very essential. Hence, there is an urgent need to circumvent the pest damage following integrated management strategies to get more productivity in these energy rich crops. Identification, nature of damage, description of the biology and management practices of sucking pests in oilseed crops are discussed in this chapter.