Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae), Tomato Leaf Miner (TLM) moth, is one of the notorious oligophagous pests of solanaceous crops that mines primarily on mesophyll of leaves as well bore tomato fruits. In Nepal, T. absoluta, the pest that has a potential to create loss up to 100%, was detected in 2016 in a commercial tomato farm at Kathmandu. So, the farmers and researchers must heed for effective management contrivance to improve the yield of tomato in Nepal. The devastating nature of T. absoluta causes its unusual proliferation so that it needs dire study of its host range, potential damage and sustainable management strategies. We discussed the data and information on T. absoluta available in several research papers comprehensively and provided succinct information on occurrence of T. absoluta in the world, its biology, life cycle, host plants, yield loss due to T. absoluta and several novel control tactics which helps farmers, researchers, policy makers to sustainably rise the tomato production in Nepal as well as in global context to attain food security. Sustainable pest management strategies such as Integrated Pests Management (IPM) approaches incorporating and prioritizing biological control methods with usage of chemical pesticides with less toxic active ingredient can be encouraged to the farmers for controlling the pests sustainably.

Dhakal A, Khanal S, Pandey M. 2021. Ethnoveterinary practice of medicinal plants in Chhatradev Rural Municipality, Arghakhanchi District of Western Nepal. Nusantara Bioscience 13: 29-40. The use of medicinal plants is a traditional system in treating domestic animals in Nepal. This study was done to investigate and document knowledge about using different plants with medicinal value to cure different animal ailments in Chhatradev Rural Municipality, Arghakhanchi district of western Nepal. A total of 100 elderly people rearing domestic animals and having traditional knowledge of ethnoveterinary plants were selected for interview. A semi-structured questionnaire was employed, and interviews were conducted for addressing detailed ethnoveterinary information. The uses of 103 plant species belonging to 56 families were documented for the treatment of 21 animal ailments. Fabaceae was found to be a dominant family with 10 plant species followed by Poaceae (8 species). The most commonly used plant parts were leaf, seed, and fruit. Herbs were dominant with 44 plant species followed by trees (32 species), shrubs (14 species), and climbers (13 species). The wide application of the medicinal plants as the form of paste formulation was observed for 41 plant species, while 25 plant species were used as powder formulation followed by Juice (21 species), raw (20 species), decoction (19 species), infusion (5 species), and roasted formulation (3 species). Oral route was the most common route followed by dermal and ocular. It was found that the informant consensus factor (ICF) values varied from 0.858 to 0.96. A high informant consensus factor was found for ailment of reproductive category (0.96) followed by respiratory (0.957), gastrointestinal (0.949) while the least was in urinary problem category (0.858). The highest citation frequency was found for Trachyspermum ammi (L.) Sprague (247) followed by Myristica fragrans Houtt. (111), Sesamum indicum L. (109), Saccharum officinarum L. (107) and Zea mays L. (97). The wide use and rich knowledge of ethnoveterinary practice were found in the study area. This study might be handy to discover useful ethnopharmaceutical agents applicable in the livestock industry. Conservation programs should be done from the government level and study on the use of medicinal plants for treating animal diseases is recommended.

The Coffee White Stem Borer (CWSB) is one of the most dreadful and destructive pests of coffee in Asian nations, causing significant production loss each year. CWSB has a narrow host range, with Coffea arabica as their principal host. Once they bore into the stem of C. arabica, the whole plant must be uprooted. The study on the cumulative effects of the invasion of pests in the Nepalese agriculture system is quite vague. Farmers use a variety of methods to combat CWSB, but most of them are ineffective and wasteful. To effectively combat pests, it is important to understand the variety and abundance of natural enemies as well as the botanicals that have pesticide potential. If the management of CWSB in the Nepalese context goes unaddressed, it will prompt an alarming issue to coffee production in Nepal. Hence, it is of utmost necessity to develop rational management strategies of CWSB for promoting organic coffee in Nepal, which has garnered a reputation of excellent quality in the global market. This paper seeks to provide comprehensive information on the CWSB's management technique for using bio-rational compounds to aid Nepalese farmers cultivating organic coffee.

Biopesticides are an important component of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) programs for insect pest control since they are more natural, environmentally friendly, safer than chemical pesticides and have relatively no or little effect on non-target organisms. They aid in improving crop health and yields while lowering production costs and eliminating the usage of toxic chemicals. They are effective tools for creating new sustainable agricultural products. Several botanicals and microbial biopesticides have been identified, isolated, processed, and used to eliminate hazards caused by Coleopteran, Hemipteran, Dipteran, Lepidopteran, Hymenopteran, and Thysanopteran insects. Several species of botanicals such as Neem (Azadirachta indica A.), Chili pepper (Capsicum annuum), Garlic (Allium sativum), Moringa (Moringa oleifera), Clove basil (Ocimum gratissimum), China berry (Melia azedarach), bitter leaf (Vernonia amygdalina) etc. and microbes such as Bacillus thuringiensis, Beauveria bassiana, Metarhizium anisopliae, Baculovirus (nucleopolyhedrovirus (NPV) and granulovirus (GV) ), Steinernema carpocapsae, Nosema, etc. have been used as biopesticides. Because biopesticides are successful in managing insect pests and diseases while also being safe to humans and the environment, they must be manufactured in the country and made available to farmers. SAARC J. Agric., 20(1): 1-13 (2022)

Although Nepal is a landlocked country, it has abundant water resources that enhance its potential for fisheries and aquaculture activities. But, only a few percentages of the total water resources have been utilized properly. Despite a satisfactory growth in pond fish production over the last 15 years with 73,693 Mt. of fish produced in the fiscal year 2020/21, there has not been much significant advancement in the fisheries sector as expected. Some of the major challenges encountered by farmers are lack of technical knowledge, lack of capital, scarcity of good quality fingerlings, quality feed, diseases, and lack of good market infrastructure. We recommend government authorities to address the problems as aquaculture and fisheries are important sectors that contribute to nutrition for rural people and employment opportunities for many individuals.

The field experiment was conducted from March to June of 2017 in field conditions at the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science (IAAS), Paklihawa Campus, Rupandehi, Nepal to evaluate the efficacy of botanicals, microbial, and chemical insecticide against Leucinodes orbonalis Guenee. We assessed seven treatments including control in randomized complete block design with four replications and two sprays. The treatments evaluated for the management of L. orbonalis were i) Jholmal, 250 ml/l of water ii) Beauveria bassiana (Daman), 4 g/l water iii) Abamectin 5 % (Biotrine), 0.5 ml/l of water iv) Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki (Mahastra), 4 g/l of water v) Emamectin benzoate (Cobra), 0.5 g/l of water vi) Azadirachtin 1500 ppm (Neem Kavach), 5 ml/l of water vii) Control (pure water application). All the treatments applied were found to be superior to the control. The results revealed that the lowest percentage of infested fruit i.e. 57.97% and 34.52% were found at 14 days after the first and second spray of Emamectin benzoate treatment respectively, as well as it was found to be significant over control in both sprays. The marketable yield of plot treated with Emamectin benzoate in eggplant was found to be the highest i.e.7.19 t/ha and 7.13 t/ha which was followed by Neem Kavach with the yield of 6.69 t/ha and 7.06 t/ha and that of control plots was 2.98 t/ha and 2.56 t/ha after first and second spray respectively. Further, our study concluded both marketable yield and Benefit-Cost (BC) ratio of brinjal fruit were the highest under the treatment of Emamectin benzoate followed by Jholmal and Neem Kavach. From this experiment, we concluded that Emamectin benzoate was the most effective treatment for the management of L. orbonalis while Jholmal and Neem Kavach proved to be the best alternative.