Insect pests of millets - Systematics, Bionomics, and Management.

Abstract

Insects are by far the greatest challenge to human food security and existence. There are several historical examples of great devastations ranging from mass migrations to even the collapse of human civilization settlements due to insect outbreaks. The plant bug (P. maidis)-orchestrated the demise of the Classic Maya Civilization in the AD 9th century and a series of transcontinental locust outbreaks in the recent past are some of the archetypical examples of the destructive ability of insects. In Africa and central Asia, during 2003–05, an estimated US$500 million was spent on taming the onslaught of a locust plague. Even political instabilities seem to abet the pest outbreaks in some instances. The 2012 locust swarm in north African countries was articulated as “the fall of Gaddafi leading to the rise of desert locusts” and this was acknowledged by the FAO. Plants and insects radiated out to several lineages as a means of coevolution throughout the geological timescale. Artificial cultivation of plants for food at the dawn of human civilization brought in a new dimension to the millions of years old natural plant–insect association. Cultivated plants became the most preferred food courts for several new radiants of pestiferous insect guilds owing to the lack of natural selection against the herbivorous insect community. Insect pests swiftly respond to even a slight resistance in cultivars of crop plants by producing local populations or biotypes. Therefore, virtually any attempt against insects, either in the form of human interference or by way of plants themselves developing resistance, is decisively neutralized by insect pests. Such resilient capacity of insects leads to increased pest pressure especially on crop plants. Millets as a group of cultivated plants are no stranger to the insect pests. There are at least 450 insect species recorded globally on millets. The production economy of millets does not allow the farmer to take up cost-intensive pest control measures as the crops are cultivated in resource-deprived farms. Thus, the cost–benefit conundrum of pest control on one side and the ability of insects to overcome pest control attempts on the other side forms a critical combination in the millet production system. Such a special condition warrants a thorough understanding of the entire gamut of key insect pests associated with the millet ecosystem. We, in this volume, brought together all the scattered relevant research findings to provide a comprehensive understanding of insect pests of millets. This book is uniquely designed to provide all the available information on insects associated with millets in a lucid manner. The book also contains color images of insect pests, damage symptoms, and diagrammatic explanations to help the reader in identifying the pests.