Recent Advances in Acridology

Over the last decade or so, the use of insecticides has increased exponentially, and some of these are carcinogenic and therefore, banned from usage completely. With the advent of biopesticides and integrated pest management (IPM), the focus is on ecofriendly approaches and very little academic literature exits on how to best utilize this arena for acridiods of agricultural importance. Insect pests have been estimated to cause $90.5 billion dollars in damages to eight principal food and cash crops viz., rice, wheat, barley, maize, potato, soybean, cotton and coffee versus $76.9 billion dollars damage by disease pathogens and $76.3 billion dollars by weeds. It has been suggested that by adopting insect pest management, the global crops could be doubled. This book, therefore, should help shed some light on crop damage by grasshoppers and the results of such studies will be instrumental in understanding and devising population management strategies and should especially be useful to farmers, entomologists, agriculturists, or any one else who may be considering to take a lead role in crop production.