author(s)
Ipsita Samal, Aditya Kumar Tanwar, Tanmaya Kumar Bhoi, Fazil Hasan, Neha Trivedi, Hemant Kumar and Mukesh K Dhillon

abstract
Maize is one of the most important cereal crop which has been reported to be attacked by 139 different insect pests in different phenological stages. Host plant resistance, which is economically viable and ecologically sound can be effectively utilized for managing various insect pests. Various morphological and biochemical characters governing the host plant resistance include a number of trichomes, trichome density, surface wax, leaf toughness and amino acids, proteins and various lipophillic compounds. Thus depending on the capacity to fulfill the nutritional requirement of an insect, a host can be resistant or susceptible. At times, the genotypes identified as resistant/tolerant to C. partellus under one agro-ecological region have been found to be susceptible at another region, might be because of genotype x environment interactions. Several biochemical factors, protein and lipids are the major determinants for quality of a host. The nutritional value of protein is determined by its amino acid contents. Apart from protein synthesis, high levels of free amino acids are reported to have some additional functions in neural transmission, detoxification, and synthesis of phospholipids, energy production, and morphogenetic processes that have important biological roles in insects’ growth and development. Fatty acids are compounds of basic significance associated with biology of insects including storage of metabolic energy, cell and bio-membrane structure, and in regulatory physiology of insects. The requirement of amino acids and lipophillic compounds for insects can be studied in different agroecologies and this could have implications in developing resistant/tolerant varieties against a particular insect.