Integrated Management of Insect Vectors of Plant Pathogens

A vector is an organism capable of transmitting pathogens from one host to another. Among the plant pathogen transmitting agencies, insect vectors are most important and various plant pathogens in crops are transmitted by insects. Insect vectors are much more hazardous because small population of vector can spread the pathogen in whole of the field or to new areas. These are difficult to manage and hence multi-pronged strategy should be adopted. To effectively manage insect vectors of plant pathogens there is a need to look into the careful timing of application of chemicals, integrated treatment with vector sampling, estimation of threshold level of vectors, assessing infection of pathogen at varying period of the year and combining insecticides with other means of control such as resistant cultivars, natural enemies, inclusion of plant products, cultural practices, biotechnology tools etc. An integration of control measures will be more effective and ecologically sound than any single method to control insect vectors of plant pathogens. The control of insect vectors with the use of various tactics should be used to reduce the severity and to delay appearance of disease.