Pests are highly responsible for heavy crop losses and reduced food supplies, poorer quality of agricultural products, economic hardship for growers and processor. Generally, chemical control methods are practiced for their control which is neither always economical nor effective and may have associated unwanted health, safety and environmental risks. However, to meet the challenge of feeding to the ever increasing human population, an efficient, economical and environment friendly disease control methods are requisites. In this regard, biological control may be an effective means of reducing or mitigating the pests and pest effects through the use of natural enemies. Biological control is an environmentally sound which involves the use of beneficial microorganism to control plant pathogens and diseases they cause. Therefore, in this chapter we will provide a comprehensive account of this environmental friendly approach for effectively management of plant diseases. This chapter will also accentuate the development of biological control agents for practical applications and the underlying mechanism. The contents in the chapter will be beneficial and advantageous to all those working in academia or industry related to crop protection.

Abstract:The milk has high nutritional properties and is widely used as baby food in different forms. The present study was undertaken to evaluate pesticide contamination in bovine milk samples from Patna district of Bihar. Out of 24 samples analyzed during 2012, 18 samples (75 %) were found to be contaminated with HCH residues varying from ND-0.178 mg kg -1 (mean value 0.135 mg kg ). The residues of HCH and DDT were above MRL in four samples (16.7 %) and three samples (12.5 %) respectively. The management practices of animals and legal punishment on using banned pesticides are the alternatives to reduce pesticide contamination incidences in milk.

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A large number of farmers thresh paddy crop by hand or by a walk on it under feet of animals. Now a day's number of progressive farmers are using pedal-operated or hold on type threshers, which does not have a cleaning facility. In the present study, the performance of the tractor-operated winnower was evaluated at three different winnower fan rpm, which were 786, 918 and 1049rpmall the parts of were connected with the help of tachometer circuit diagram. From the results, found that optimum cleaning efficiency of 96 percent at winnower rpm of 918. Hence, tractor operated winnower can be operated at 918 rpm for high cleaning efficiency and winnower hopper can be adjusted at a distance of 60 cm from winnower fan axis to provide an optimum air velocity to the grain.

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