ICAR JRF Entomology & Nematology Syllabus 2026 — Code 04

Major Subject Group: Entomology & Nematology
Sub-Subjects: 4.1 Entomology · 4.2 Nematology · 4.3 Sericulture

This is the complete syllabus page for ICAR JRF Entomology & Nematology (Code 04). Code 04 combines the common General Agriculture base with the subject areas that usually decide rank in this paper: insect classification, morphology, crop pests, beneficial insects, nematode biology, and integrated pest management.

---

Exam Snapshot

Parameter	Details
Subject Code	04 — Entomology & Nematology
Subject Group	Major Subject Group: Entomology & Nematology
Total Questions	120 MCQs
Duration	2 Hours
Marking Scheme	+4 per correct answer
Negative Marking	−1/3 per wrong answer
Question Type	Multiple Choice (Single correct)
Medium	English

---

Latest Official Notification Details

Parameter	2026-27 Official Detail
Notice Date	08 May 2026
Application Window	08 May 2026 to 07 June 2026 (up to 5:00 PM)
Fee Payment Deadline	07 June 2026 (up to 11:50 PM)
Correction Window	09 June to 10 June 2026
Exam Date	04 July 2026 (Saturday)
Mode	Computer Based Test (CBT)
Pattern	Objective type MCQs
Medium	English only
Duration	02 hours (120 minutes)
Test Cities	Around 122 cities across India
Source	NTA 2026 Public Notice PDF · ICAR Syllabus PDF

---

What Is Officially Fixed For Code 04

• Code 04 is the official major subject group for Entomology & Nematology in AICE JRF/SRF (Ph.D.).
• The paper is conducted in English only, in CBT mode, for 120 minutes.
• The official syllabus groups the paper into General Agriculture, Entomology, Nematology, and Sericulture-linked beneficial insect basics.
• NTA publishes the exam notice, schedule, mode, duration, and application rules, but it does not publish official unit-wise weightage for Code 04.
• The “high-yield areas”, “best books”, and “revise first” parts below are therefore student guidance, not an official marks blueprint.

---

Entomology Subject Map

---

Unit-I: General Agriculture

This common unit supports every ICAR JRF subject group and usually supplies the baseline questions that students lose by under-revising.

Crop Production Basics

• Importance of agriculture in national economy
• Basic principles of crop production
• Cultivation of rice, wheat, chickpea, pigeon-pea, sugarcane, groundnut, tomato, cole crops, mango, grapes, banana, and major oilseeds

Soils, Nutrition and Cropping Systems

• Major soils of India
• Role of NPK and their deficiency symptoms
• Major cropping systems: rice-wheat, crop rotation, mixed cropping
• Soil salinity, acidity, and basic management

Cell Biology, Genetics and Physiology

• Mendelian genetics
• Elementary knowledge of photosynthesis, respiration, and transpiration
• Heterosis in crop production
• Transgenic crops

Crop Protection and Institutions

• Crop protection principles in field and storage
• Important pests and diseases of cereals, pulses, oilseeds, vegetables, and fruit crops
• Important rural development programmes in India
• Organizational setup of agricultural research, education and extension in India
• Elements of statistics

---

Unit-II: Entomology, Nematology and Sericulture Core

This is the main scoring area for Code 04. The paper usually rewards students who connect classification, morphology, biology, host symptoms, and management instead of memorizing them separately.

Classification and Morphology

• Classification of animal kingdom up to class
• Distinguishing characters up to orders in class Insecta
• General organization of insect external morphology
• Special reference to lepidopteran larvae, coleopteran adults, and honeybee morphology
• Metamorphosis and moulting
• Different physiological systems of insects

Insect Biology and Ecology

• Insect-plant relationship
• Insect pests of agricultural and horticultural crops
• Insect pests of stored and processed products
• Insect vectors of plant diseases: identification, biology, nature of damage, and management tactics
• Pests of household, medical, and veterinary importance and their control

Beneficial Insects and Sericulture

• Honeybee
• Lac insect
• Silkworm
• Pollinators and their agricultural importance

Nematology

• Nematode taxonomy
• Biology of important plant parasitic nematodes and their control
• Entomopathogenic nematodes

Pest Management

• Basic principles of insect and nematode pest management
• Cultural methods
• Biological control
• Insecticidal methods
• Quarantine and regulatory aspects
• Insecticide classification
• Insecticide resistance management
• Insect-protective transgenic crops

---

Exam-Focused High-Yield Areas

Area	Why it matters in Code 04 prep
Insect orders and identifying characters	Paper setters repeatedly turn morphology into direct recall MCQs
Metamorphosis and moulting	Easy high-frequency concept area with clear factual options
Major field and horticultural pests	Host crop, nature of damage, and management are classic objective-question combinations
Beneficial insects	Honeybee, lac insect, silkworm, and pollinators are short but very scoring
Nematode taxonomy and plant parasitic nematodes	Often neglected by students, so this becomes a rank separator
Vectors of plant diseases	Good area for biology plus symptom-based questions
IPM and biological control	High-return because concepts repeat across many crops
Insecticide classes and resistance management	Direct application area in MCQ papers

Quick Reference: What To Revise First

Area	What to focus on first
Morphology	Head, thorax, abdomen, larval types, order-wise identifying features
Classification	Major insect orders and their distinguishing characters
Crop Pests	Rice, cotton, pulses, oilseeds, vegetables, fruit pests, vectors, storage pests
Beneficial Insects	Honeybee, lac, silkworm, pollinator importance
Nematology	Plant parasitic nematodes, root-knot and cyst concepts, entomopathogenic nematodes
Management	Cultural, biological, chemical, quarantine, resistance management, transgenic crop protection
General Agriculture	NPK deficiency, cropping systems, soil salinity/acidity, heterosis, rural development

---

Best Books for ICAR JRF Entomology & Nematology

This list follows the same-channel Entomology topper + Agricultural Entomology booklist videos and maps the named books to the JRF Entomology & Nematology syllabus.

Book	Best use in the syllabus
Insecta: An Introduction — K. N. Ragumoorthi	Best starting book for general entomology, insect structure, and insect basics
Principles of Applied Entomology — K. N. Ragumoorthi	Good for applied entomology and concept-oriented revision
An Outline of Entomology — G. S. Dhaliwal	Useful for entomology overview and order-level revision
Elements of Economic Entomology — B. V. David & V. V. Ramamurthy	Best for economic entomology and crop-pest orientation
Integrated Pest Management — G. S. Dhaliwal & Ramesh Arora	Best match for IPM, management principles, and pest-control strategy
Handbook of Entomology — T. V. Prasad	Good for fast revision and objective-style recall
Entomology and Pest Management — L. P. Pedigo & M. E. Rice	Useful selective support for pest-management logic
Pests of Stored Grain and Their Management — M. C. Bhargava & K. C. Kumawat	Best for stored-product pest topics
Textbook of Applied Entomology — K. P. Srivastava	Useful for crop pests and applied entomology chapters
A Textbook of Insect Toxicology — R. P. Saxena & R. C. Srivastava	Best for insecticides, toxicology, and chemical-control topics
Applied Entomology — D. S. Reddy	Used in the topper-video list for applied crop-pest preparation
Introductory Plant Nematology — Bajaj & Walia	Best for nematology basics, plant-parasitic nematodes, and control
Entomology Refresher	Good for last-stage recap and quick revision
Minimal rank-oriented plan	Insecta: An Introduction — K. N. Ragumoorthi, Elements of Economic Entomology — David & Ramamurthy, Integrated Pest Management — Dhaliwal & Arora, and Introductory Plant Nematology — Bajaj & Walia + PYQs

How To Prepare The General Agriculture Layer Efficiently With AgriDots

For plant- and agriculture-heavy JRF groups, the common agriculture base is explicit in the official syllabus itself. That is clear in groups such as Agronomy, Soil Science, Horticulture, Entomology, Plant Science, Plant Biotechnology, Social Sciences, and Water Science & Technology. In the animal, dairy, fisheries, food, engineering, forestry, community-science, and statistics groups, the same layer still improves scores because objective papers reward candidates who can quickly eliminate options using basic knowledge of crops, soils, schemes, extension, economics, statistics, and current agriculture.

So the practical rule is simple: do not prepare your subject in isolation. Keep one common-agriculture revision layer active throughout your JRF preparation.

Shared Books For The Common Agriculture Layer

Book	Best use in common JRF preparation
Fundamentals of Agriculture, Vol. 1 & 2 — Arun Katyayan	Best base book for crop production, soils, nutrient deficiency, plant biology, genetics, pests, diseases, and agriculture basics
A Competitive Book of Agriculture — Nem Raj Sunda	Best for objective revision once the basic theory is already clear
Objective Agriculture for JRF Exam — S. R. Kantwa	Useful for MCQ drilling, recall speed, and mixed-agriculture practice
General Agriculture for ICAR Examinations — Muniraj Singh Rathore	Good backup book for one-line revision and broad competitive coverage

Why AgriDots Is More Efficient Than Reading Books Alone

Use AgriDots for	Why it is faster than books alone
Shared Agriculture Course	It compresses the overlapping JRF base into linked notes across agronomy, soil science, horticulture, genetics, pathology, entomology, economics, extension, animal husbandry, fisheries, ecology, and agricultural statistics instead of forcing you to extract overlap manually from multiple standard books
Topic-Wise Agriculture Practice Tests	You can revise chapter by chapter immediately after reading instead of waiting until one full book is complete
Agriculture Test Series	Mixed-subject Revision Warrior quizzes train recall across subjects, which is closer to how objective papers actually feel
Agriculture Current Affairs Hub	Books do not stay current on MSP, schemes, production reports, fertilizer policy, dairy/fisheries updates, or digital-agriculture changes

Efficient JRF Workflow With AgriDots

1. Read one main subject book for your core discipline and keep the rest of the books as support, not as parallel first reads.
2. Use /courses/agriculture to finish the overlapping general-agriculture layer faster than building notes from multiple books.
3. After each topic, solve topic-wise quizzes so weak areas become visible immediately.
4. Use Revision Warrior mixed tests to train switching between crop, soil, genetics, economics, extension, and current-affairs questions.
5. Use agriculture-current-affairs every week so your static preparation stays updated with schemes, policy, production, and report-based questions.

Why this works better than books alone: standard books build depth, but they are slow, repetitive across subjects, and weak on current agriculture. AgriDots is better for speed, revision order, topic linking, and exam-style recall, while books remain your depth source.

---

Preparation Strategy

1. First master insect orders, external morphology, and metamorphosis, because they make many later pest questions easier.
2. Revise crop pests by grouping them crop-wise: host, damaging stage, symptom, and management.
3. Keep beneficial insects, vectors, and stored-product pests in short revision sheets because they are factual and scoring.
4. Study nematology separately for one focused cycle so it does not get buried under insect-heavy revision.
5. Use PYQs to identify whether a question is testing classification, biology, damage symptom, or management principle before choosing the answer.