Utilization of biopesticides as sustainable solutions for management of pests in legume crops: achievements and prospects

Grain legumes remain important to meet the projected targets relating to food and nutritional security worldwide. The complementation of cereal-based food with grain legumes is a vegetarian diet with high-quality protein. However, the performance of these crops is severely influenced by a number of biotic and abiotic stresses, of which pests and pathogens remain the crucial affecting plants at different growth stages. Chemical pesticides are mainly employed across the world for management of pests and pathogens. The risk associated with the environmental pollution and health hazards to man, plants, domestic animals, and wild life makes these pesticides ecologically unacceptable. Also, major damage caused by pests of grain legumes are systemic in nature, and their management through chemicals often yields unsatisfactory outcome. This has led to increasing shift in the attention of scientific community towards eco-friendly and safer technologies for pest management in legumes. Sustainable protection demands implementation of strategies that rely upon biological control agents (BCAs) and their formulations. In recent years, such formulations have been promoted to mitigate the pest problem and improving crop yield. This review presents an updated summary on BCAs including the present status of BCA application, mode of actions, and delivery systems under controlled and field conditions to address major pest problems on legume crops.