1. Introduction
Chilli (Capsicum annuum L.) belongs to the family Solanaceae is
one of the most important vegetable as well as spice crops around
the world including Malaysia valued for its aroma, taste, flavor and
pungency. Different varieties of chilli are also beingusedinpharmaceuticals, cosmetics andbeverages (Tiwary et al., 2005).InMalaysia,
total chilli production reached about 32.8 thousand tons per year in
2010with total cultivation areas about 2.8 thousand hectares (DOA,
2011). The total requirements of chilli in Malaysia reached up to
50 thousand tons per year and due to insufficient national production,the country need to expend a considerable amount of currency
to import chilli from neighboring countries. However, the average
chilli productivity in Malaysia is still very low and to achieve desirable production, it is necessary to increase both cultivation area as
well as crop productivity.
Pests and disease interference is one of the major factor for
lower production of chilli in Malaysia. Chilli is infested by more
than 21 insects and non-insect pests. Leaf curl disease and chilli
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: razi@putra.upm.edu.my (M.R. Ismail).
veinal mottle virus (CVMV) are most common in Malaysia (Shih
et al., 2007; Arogundade et al., 2012), and some herbivores insect
such as aphid, thrips and mites also acts as a vector for the
transmission of plant viruses (Thaler et al., 1996).
To minimize negative consequences of pests and to maintain
higher crop productivity, farmers always give priority to apply
pesticides. Although pesticide application is useful to disease control, it also has some negative impacts on biodiversity and nature.
Sometime farmers used huge amount of pesticides without proper
diagnosis which results in resurgence of the pests, phytotoxicity
on fruits, infertility and presence of high amount of pesticidal
residues on harvested fruits. Extensive application of pesticides has
now become another threat to sustainable agricultural production
(David, 1991; Awasthi et al., 2001). Taking into consideration concerns aboutthe sustainability ofinput-intensive agriculture and the
economic, ecologic, and environmental effects of pesticides overuse, it is now clear that over all application of pesticide should be
reduced. Agricultural scientists and planners are now giving priorities in their research for possible alternatives of the agrochemicals
and pesticides.
Several studies have proved that exogenous application of different elicitors are useful to enhanced resistance to herbivore
challenge and induce the expression of defense related genes