Fertilizers supply essential plant nutrients, mainly nitrogen (N), potassium (K) and phosphorous (P).These fertilizers increase the yield of the crop but they cause several health hazard. Due to the several health hazard, consumer preferences shift towards the use of the organic food grown without use of any chemical. In recent years, biofertilizers have emerged as an important component for biological nitrogen fixation. They offer an economically attractive and ecologically sound route for providing nutrient to the plant. Biofertilizers are low-cost renewable source of nutrient that supplements the chemical fertilizer. Biofertilizers gained importance due to its low cost amongst small and marginal farmer.

Chemical agents are extensively used in all countries of the world in1960s, for controlling the agricultural pest and pathogens, it became apparent that agricultural chemicals were responsible for causing environmental pollution, they were present in the food chain, they were capable of inducing pest resistance, development of disease resistance, toxic hazards to man, plants, domestic animals and wild life, as a result they are regarded as ecologically unacceptable. Therefore, from the last two decades, scientists are looking for environmentally and toxicologically safe and more effective methods to control plant pathogens /pests and they increased social pressure to replace them gradually with biopesticides which are safe to humans and non-target to other beneficial organisms and cheaper than the chemicals. The isolates of the biocontrol agents are formulated by using different organic and inorganic carriers either through solid or liquid fermentation. They are applied as a seed treatment, biopriming, seedling dip, soil application, foliar spray, fruit spray, sucker treatment and sett treatment.

Common rust incited by Puccinia sorghi Schw. is the most destructive fungal foliar disease of maize worldwide. It is reported that common rust diseases can greatly reduce grain yield of maize in susceptible genotypes by 40% on an average. Foliar disease management in maize often involves indiscriminate use of chemicals or total reliance on host plant resistance (HPR). Integrated disease management (IDM) have clearly demonstrated that when moderate levels of HPR are combined with field treatment and affordable levels of chemical control, expected yields and economic returns are higher than obtained with chemical control of susceptible genotypes. Local agronomic practices were followed during the same period of investigation. Foliar application of Tebuconazole @ 0.1% at 35 and 50 DAS, that is, T 1 was significantly superior and highly effective in reducing the disease severity (19.74%) and gave maximum grain yield (66.87 q/ha). The next best treatment was foliar application of Hexaconazole @ 0.1% at 35 and 50 DAS (28.23%) followed by foliar application of Tebuconazole @ 0.1% at 35 DAS and Neemazole F 5% at 50 DAS. The study suggests that any technology developed for maize should offer a clear yield and foliar disease resistance advantage over farmers' current practices.

Experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of date of sowing on groundnut cultivars against late leaf spot disease severity, defoliation, frequency and size of the leaf spot which revealed that all these aspects were significantly influenced by the date of sowing and crop varieties which directly affect the pod yield and test weight. The crop sown early on 25 th June exhibited maximum mean late leaf spot disease severity (range 43.63 to 54.05%), defoliation (range, 17.22 to 22.30%), frequency (range, 1.32 to 1.78 / mm 2 ) and size (range, 1.49 to 1.56 / mm 2 ) and thereby gave reduced pod yield (range, 1225 to 1720 kg/ha) and test weight (28.66 to 32.97 g) followed by 10 th July and 25 th July. Among the groundnut cultivars, susceptible cv. JL 24 exhibited maximum mean disease severity (range, 35.94 to 54.05 %), defoliation (range, 11.61 to 22.30 %), frequency (range, 1.23 to 1.78 / mm 2 ) and size (range, 1.26 to 1.56 / mm 2 ), followed by TAG 24 and TG 26. However, LGN 1 exhibited least mean disease severity, defoliation, frequency and size with the highest pod yield (ranges, 1720 to 2332 kg/ha) and test weight (ranges, 32.97 to 38.59 g).