Ancient Crop Protection Practices: Their Relevance Today

By Pankaj Goyal

  Posted 11/3/03

  Domestication of plants and animals was probably the most significant event in the history of humankind. As a
result of this important event, many breakthroughs such as the invention of soil conditioning tools and planting
procedures came into existence. This was the turning point in the history of humans, as agriculture replaced
hunting and food collection from the purview of human activity.

It is believed that the first organised agriculture developed in West Asia. Some early village sites such as Jarmo
in the Kurdish hills (Iraq) date back to about 5000 BC. Some scholars believed that in contrast to the field-scale
agriculture of the West Asia, garden production of root crops prevailed in parts of Asia. Recent research
however is showing that even cereal agriculture my have preceded in China over West Asia (Yasuda 2002).
Current studies in India might reveal a parallel development of organised agriculture in the Indian subcontinent
to that in West Asia.

After the beginning of agriculture, humans had to worry about the protection of plants. It began when humans
attempted to understand ailments affecting crops, which now are known as ‘abiotic’ and ‘biotic’ disorders. It
must also be taken for granted that the causal agents were present too. Bacteria, fungi, viruses, insects and
nematodes must have affected plants for millennia. But, the crucial step towards plant protection took place
when the pests invaded the first crop of cultivated plants. Therefore, we can assume that the biotic and abiotic
disorders were already present when the humans made their appearance. What is important to note is that
plant diseases were well recognised by ancient Indian scientists and that they developed organic agents as
pesticides. It is now being recognised by modern agricultural science also that organic manure and pesticides
are better than the chemical ones. These time tested traditional methods have become more relevant today
when the effects of the so called Green Revolution are wearing off, based as it was heavily on chemical inputs.
And now we are getting into the genetically modified crops, without much concern for their long term
consequences.

Under the leadership of Y.L. Nene the journal Asian Agri-History publishes very educative and interesting
articles related to the history of agriculture. Below we give a summary of his recent article, Crop Diseases
Management Practices in Ancient, Medieval, and Pre- Modern India (Nene 2003).

As far as the Indian subcontinent is concerned, there are some valuable documents available which contain
some information on man’s efforts to protect his crops. The earliest references are found in the
Vedas: Rigveda andAtharvaveda. The other books that provide valuable information are Kautilya’s Artha-sastra,
Amarsimha’s Amarkosha, Patanjali’s Mahabhasya, Krishi-Parashara, Sangam literature of Tamilians,
Agnipurana, Varahmihira’s Brhat Samhita, Kashyapiyakrishisukti, Surpala’s Vrikshayurveda, Someshwara
Deva’s Manasollasa etc. These books give a true and detailed idea about the plant protection practices followed
in India since millennia. We must also admit the sad fact that the political turmoil for past several centuries led
to the destruction of many libraries and even today the old manuscripts in certain libraries are not properly
preserved.

For convenience, Nene’s paper is divided into four parts: (A) Identification of disorders; (B) Protection
practices; (C) Materials and practices that need our early attention; and (D) Epilogue.

(A) Identification of Disorders

As mentioned earlier, man began to protect his crops as soon as he started settling on land and practice
organized agriculture. Initially, his concerns were pets like birds and animals, but soon he realized that crops
suffer from some other disorders also, the causes of which were not clear. As a result he turned to gods and
goddesses for the protection of his crops. The disorders can be divided into two types: biotic and abiotic
depending upon the causal agents living or non-living respectively. There are also some internal disorders
based on an Ayurvedic concept. All of these are described below in brief.

(A.1.) Biotic Disorders

1. Birds- The earliest references about birds as pests were found in Rigveda. Protection of a ready to
harvest crop by shouting to scare the birds has been also mentioned. The other texts mentioned
earlier also refer to damage to mature crops by birds. Some specific birds mentioned are parakeets,
sparrows, crows, hawks and several others.
2. Rats- Atharvaveda, Kautilya’s Arthasastra and several other texts mention rat, as a pest, attacking
crops in the field as well as stored grains.
3. Other animals- Several other animals such as wild boar, deer, goats and buffaloes etc. were also
supposed to damage the crops.
4. Locusts and termites- Both locusts and termites are mentioned as pests in several texts.
5. Other insects- References to specific insects like Leptocorisa varicornis (Gandhi
bug), pandarmundi (white earhead), Tryporyza incertulas etc. are found in the literature of 19th and
20th centuries.
6. Phanerogamic parasites- A phanerogamic semiparasite Loranthus longiflorus Disr. was mentioned by
Susruta (c. 400 BC). Similarly, dodder (Cuscuta reflexa  Roxb.), a parasite has been mentioned
in Bhavaprakashanighantu  (Pandey and Chunekar, 1999).
7. Algae and fungi- Jahangir (1605-1627), in his memoirs, described a disorder of marigold, which could
be ascribed today to species of Alternaria, Botrytis, or Sclerotinia. The diseases known as “mildew of
paddy” and “blight of sugarcane” were mentioned in some Buddhist documents, but this information
needs to be confirmed. Some documents of the early 19th century from the Mewar region of
Rajasthan give description about powdery mildew (chhachhia) on different plants, and canker or
anthracnose (titari) of orange. In the second half of the 19th century parasitism of fungi was proven
in Europe. A Dictionary of Economic Products of India was a monumental effort of G Watt, published
during 1889-1893. This book contains a detailed description of disorders of crops covering the period
from 1820s. Watt (1889-1893) mentions various fungal diseases, some of which are as follows:

(a) Ergots of barley, oat, pearl millet and horse gram (b) Smut and rust (Puccinia sp.) of
wheat
(c) Leaf rot of coconut (Pellicularia koleroga)
(d) Rust of barberry
(e) Rust (Melampsora lini) of linseed
(f) Rust (white rust ?) of mustard
(g) Late blight of potato
(h) Powdery and downy mildews of grape wine
(i) Root blight in tea
(j) Bunt of wheat
(k) Smuts and rusts of barley and maize
(l) False smut of paddy
(m) Blight of cotton
(n) Cercospora leafspot of cotton in Madras (Chennai)
(o) Powdery mildew (?) of indigo
(p) Rust and smut of pearl millet in Western United Provinces (U.P.)
(q) Mildew (Cercospora sp. ?) of black gram
(r) “Fungoid” diseases (tuto, angare, nona, chittigabari, gandi) of betel vine in Bengal
(s) Whip smut of sugarcane
(t) Rust and smut of sorghum

(A.2.) Abiotic disorders

Surpala, for the first time in the history of world agriculture classified plant disorders into two types: internal
and external. The abiotic disorders were considered as the external type and are mentioned below.
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van Loon, Lc., Bakker, P.A.H.M., and Pieterse, C.M.J. 1998. Systemic resistance induced by rhizosphere
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By Pankaj Goyal
Lok Vigyan Kendra 
Almora 263601