ABSTRACT
210 211The grave negative impacts of insecticides usage on the environment and public health led to concerted efforts directed toward reduction in chemical control of insect pests, diseases, and weeds. Integrated pest management has been endorsed by essentially all the multilateral environmental agreements that have transformed the global policy framework of natural resource management, agriculture, and trade. IPM has remained dominant paradigm of pest control over the last 50 years. Now ecologically based pest management (EBPM) programs are taking shapes for the sustainable insect pest management. There are indeed needs of safer biological insecticides for the successful implementation of EBPM programs worldwide. Amongst various alternatives to the EBPM, insect pathogens in particular insect pathogenic viruses have great potential for the sustainable insect pest management. Although there is a great diversity of insect viruses, only a few are exploited commercially for pest management. Among them insect viruses belonging to family Baculoviridae are highly explored. Since the discovery of nuclear polyhedrosis viruses causing jaundice in silkworm a lot of research work has been carried out on various aspects of viruses like their taxonomic features, mode of action and application and development of suitable formulations for pest management. Hence in this chapter an attempt has been made to summarize the essential information on these subjects. Besides such an extensive research on various aspects, insect viruses are still not so common in EBPM strategies. Hence there is a dire need to have collaborative efforts among various stakeholders viz . corporate sector, scientist and ultimately farmers to make best use of available insect viruses to curtail pesticide load on the environment.
