Improving soil fertility
In intensive crop cultivation, nitrate is one of the important plant nutrients in the soil that becomes used up. Scientists are developing various strains of nitrogen fixing bacteria like azotobacter and Rhizobium that can fix nitrogen more efficiently than the existing ones.
Biological control of pests
Chemical pesticides are unsatisfactory as they
• pollute the environment,
• accumulate to toxic levels in the final consumer of a good chain,
• are non specific , killing both harmful pests and beneficial insects and spiders.
Now, where possible, biological agents are being used to control pests. several micro organisms have been produced to specifically attack insect pests. These pathogens may be added tot the crop in a powder. In one method, some of the male pest are inoculated with the pathogen and released into the pest population. They spread the pathogens to the females also become infected. Eventually, the pests die when the pathogens build up to lethal levels.
