Biological options for crop health (Nutrition, pest and disease) management-sanguine to sustainable agriculture

Interest in biological control of plant insect pests and pathogens has been stimulated in recent years by trends in agriculture towards greater sustainability and public concern about the use of hazardous pesticides. Microorganisms have the capability to synthesize many different biologically active secondary metabolites such as antibiotics, herbicides, pesticides, antiparasitic and enzymes like cellulase, chitinase and xylanase. Microbial collection at ICRISAT, Patancheru, India has over 2000 accessions of bacteria and actinomycetes isolated from various sources and/or niches of composts, rhizosphere and rhizoplane soil samples of sorghum and rice. These accessions possess at least one of six agriculturally beneficial traits studied viz. phosphate solublization, siderophore production, cellulose degradation, nitrogen fixation, antagonism to disease causing fungi and fluorescent Pseudomonas. In addition to that ICRISAT has also identified 28 entomopathogenic bacteria and actinomycetes capable of managing the most