Microbial biopesticides for sustainable agricultural practices

Abstract Sustainable agricultural practices are the result of the integration of effective utilization of resources that has minimal effect on the environment. These practices include the process of finding natural alternative the chemical based pesticides with the use of biopesticides as the earlier used pesticides were hazardous to human health, environment and food quality. Biopesticides are the chemical/certain minerals of natural origin (e.g. chemicals or formulations derived from pants, animals, bacteria etc.) as defined by United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Biopesticides can be categorized into the following types: 1. Live organisms termed as entomopathogenic microorganisms classified into different categories like entomopathogenic bacteria, entomopathogenic fungi (EPF) entomopathogenic nematodes, viruses or protozoans, 2. Plant-Incorporated-Protectants (PIPs) resulted from transgenic plants like transgenic Bt toxin, 3. Biochemical pesticides. The mechanisms by which biopesticides lead to the suppression of the pathogen include the production of toxin specific to the pest, antibiosis, antagonism, induce parasitic activity on the pests and strenghten the systemic resistance in the host plants. The interactions at the rhizosphere region and in the phyllosphere determine the effectiveness of the microbial biopesticides. For a better understanding of these interactions, the genomic profiling and comparative bioassays of the microbial pesticides against the pests should be considered. For future directions, the RNAi-Based Biopesticides and integrated strategies involving genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and bioinformatics have the potential to effectively mitigate the pests that may lead to the evolution of new pest management with more safety, specificity and efficacy.