Principles of Crop Protection

Crop protection is the general method or the practice of protecting the crop yields from different agents including pests, weeds, plant diseases, and other organisms that cause damage to the agricultural crops. The study of Crop protection is essential for humans to comprehend, research, apply, extend and produce and to able to contribute solutions to problems in crop production and provide additional knowledge in agriculture. Crop Protection is stimulating, attention-grabbing, vital, and worth studying because as a science it has a hands-on and upright goal of protecting the food available for humans and animals. Apart from crops, agricultural fields would have weeds, small animals like rats, mites, insects, pests, disease-causing pathogens and frequently raided by birds. All these factors are mainly responsible for the loss or damage to the crops. Thus to yield high crop production, farmers need to protect the crop from these pests. Hence crop protection management is important before, during and after the cultivation. Pathogenic diseases are another type of crop-damaging factors. Microorganisms like bacteria, fungi, and viruses affect different parts of the crop through various means. Crops could be protected from these diseases by using pesticides and biocontrol agents. The book is a useful reference material for a wide gamut of readers, from policy-makers, researchers, extension workers to students.