ABSTRACT
Among the pulse crops grown in India, pigeon pea is the second most important Kharif legume crop after chickpea. India is the largest producer as well as consumer of pigeon pea, followed by Myanmar, Malawi, and Kenya. It is protein-rich, contains about 22% protein, which supplies a major share of the protein requirement of the vegetarian population of the country. For the management of these diseases, chemical pesticides are generally used. It is well established that agricultural chemicals cause not only environmental pollution but also pose serious health hazards as their injudicious use often results in toxicity to man, plants, domestic animals and wildlife and therefore are regarded as ecologically unacceptable. The management of wilt and PSB by chemicals has not yielded the anticipated results. Therefore, a renewed knowledge is needed to assess the current severity of these problems and to develop or refine bio-intensive management (BM) strategies for these biotic stresses to protect crops in an eco-friendly manner. It is a multidisciplinary approach that manages diseases effectively by integration of host plant resistance, cultural, physical, biological, safer chemical, biocontrol agents, and 284molecular approaches. These approaches can play a major role in reducing the losses due to the diseases under subsistence farming conditions. BM will definitely prove to be an effective strategy for enhancing pigeon pea production under the changing climate scenario.
