About The Book

Plantation crops play vital role in alleviating poverty, generating employment and providing livelihood security to millions of small and marginal farmers. Some of the diseases and pests like bud rot and red palm weevil damage in coconut, stem borers in cashew and coffee are lethal and cause huge loss by killing the trees while certain diseases like root (wilt) disease of coconut, and many foliar pathogens on arecanut, cashew, coffee and oil palm, pests like eriophyid mite and leaf eating cater pillar infestation in coconut cause drastic reduction in yield. Apart from these, certain invasive alien insects and pathogens are always posing a great danger to these crops. The invasion of eriophyid mite on coconut during late 1990s in India caused loss of millions of rupees within a time span of one decade.

The colorful book "Diseases, Pests and Disorders of Plantation Crops" provides current information on diseases, insect pests, disorders of six important plantation crops and their management. The diagnostic symptoms for identification and options of integrated management strategies for insects, diseases and nutritional disorders are discussed in detail. The book is easy to use and helps the users to match the symptoms of diseases, pests and disorders on plantation crops with the book's color photographs and also provides recommendations to minimize crop losses.

I hope this book would be an invaluable resource for plant protection scientists, agronomist, soil chemists, plantation managers, horticulturists, IPM practitioners, agrochemical professionals, officials of developmental agencies, plant quarantine clinics and other stakeholders concerned with healthy plantation crops production.