ABSTRACT
334Agriculture is the lifeline of farmers; however, crop damage by various pestsduring plantation/vegetative stage affects the production yield. To get thesustainable agriculture, microbial control is an alternative approach for themanagement of diseases and insect-pests. In biological control, antagonistsand entomopathogens interactions may be helpful to select more fruitfulmicrobial bioagents. The mechanisms involved between entomopathogensand antagonists are antibiosis and competition; mycoparasitism, cell walldegrading enzymes, and induced resistance and hypovirulence/crosspro-tection are described in the present chapter. Further, the role of differentmicrobial agents such as Trichoderma, Pseudomonas, Verticillium (Leca-nicillium), Bauveria, Noumeria, Metarrhizium, Paecilomyces, Hirsutella,Baculoviruses, Bacillius, Glomus, and Entomopathogenic nematodes in themanagement of different diseases and insect-pests has been elaborated here.The finding of the scholars revealed that the future view of microbes-basedcontrol of the diseases and insect-pests is bright and promising with thegrowing demand for microbial products among the growers. It is possibleto use the biological control as an effective strategy to manage the plantdiseases and insect-pests, increase yield, and protect the environment, andbioresources for sustainable agro-ecosystem.
