The Role of Natural Enemies and Biopesticides for Sustainable Management of Major Insect Pests of Legumes

Pulses are the important components of a healthy diet and take an important place in the traditional diets throughout the World (Malaguti et al. 2014). pulses are damaged by a large number of insect species, both under field conditions and in storage (Clement et al. 2000). Among legume insect pests, Helicoverpa armigera is the single largest yield shrinking factor in food legumes, causes an estimated loss of US$317 million in pigeonpea and $328 million in chickpea (ICRISAT 1992). Worldwide, it causes an estimated loss of over $2 billion annually, despite over $1 billion value of insecticides used to control H. armigera (Sharma 2005). Another pod borer Maruca vitrata causes loss to the tune of US$30 million annually (Saxena et al. 2002). Pigeonpea yield losses due to pod borer are 25–70%; Pod fly is second most important pest of pigeonpea in northern and central India, and cause 10 - 50 % yield loss. Maruca is reported to cause 5 - 25% yield loss in pigeonpea, pod bug can cause yield loss upto 30%. Soybean aphid, (Aphis glycines) can induce up to 58% yield losses in soybean crop (Wang et al. 1994) and annually $2.4 billion estimated losses in yield (Song et al. 2006, Tilmon et al. 2011). Legume flower thrips (LFT), Mylothris sjostedti Trybom in cowpea V. unguiculata in tropical Africa causes yield losses ranging from 20% to 100% (Karungi et al. 2000).