Can Agronomy provide potential eco- friendly pest management options groundnut: a case study

Agronomic practices in agriculture have wellestablished history about their role in insect-pest management. There have been several case studies documenting their positive role as pest reducers, During this process the importance of improved technology including, chemical fertilizers, hybrids, plant protection chemicals has been well established. The results from this phase were excellent and several countries have achieved self-sufficiency in food grains incl4ding India. Though this approach brought stability in food production across the world, several disadvantages such as residues in food chain, secondary pest out breaks, loss in bio- diversity followed by increased cost of inputs with eroded profits (Rao and Rao, 2010) were encountered. Considering the present situation to put agriculture back in to a profitable platform, one has to look into potential alternatives to improve and stabilize the productivity and to sustain the agro"ecosystem...