Integrated Management of Stored Grain Pest

In the remote past when people did not produce surplus food the problem of safe storage of food grains and other commodities did not exist. However, with the increase of food grain production, the practice of long storage of food grains and other commodities came into existence, thereby initiating the attack of large number of insect-pests, traditionally though to be a natural phenomenon. During post harvest handling and storage, considerable quantities of food are lost/spoiled by insect pests, moisture, mites, micro-organisms, rats, birds etc. to the tune of more than 20% every year. The problem further gets accentuated with the qualitative losses like gluten deterioration, sprouting, loss in viability and nutritional value and certain biochemical changes. Keeping all the facts in mind, the authors have taken a holistic approach to manage the major insect-pests, rats, microorganisms, fungi, mites etc. In this book "Integrated Management of Stored Grain Pest", which deals in detail the nature of damage biology and control of different stored grain pests. It also includes the storage facilities and different types of storage structures and fumigation. It is hoped that the book in its present form will be of great use to the students, research workers of the agricultural universities in general, and the farmers, traders/hoarders dealing with storage of food grains, in particular.