Practical Approaches to Pest Control: The Use of Natural Compounds

Author(s):  
Sladjan Stankovic ◽  
Miroslav Kostic ◽  
Igor Kostic ◽  
Slobodan Krnjajic

Food production is challenged by different factors: climate changes, market competitiveness, food safety, public demands, environmental challenges, new and invasive pests, etc. Intensive food production must be protected against pests, which is nowadays impossible with traditional techniques. The use of eco-friendly biopesticides based on essential oils (EOs), plant extracts (PE), and inert dusts appears to be a complementary or alternative methodology to the conventional chemically synthesized insecticides. The use of such biopesticides reduces the adverse pesticide effects on human health and environment. Biopesticides can exhibit toxic, repellent, and antifeeding effects. Development of bio-insecticides tackles the problem of food safety and residues in fresh food. Innovation within this approach is the combination of several types of active ingredients with complementary effects. Essential oils are well-known compounds with insecticide or repellent activities. New approaches, tools, and products for ecological pest management may substantially decrease pesticide use, especially in fruit and vegetable production. A win-win strategy is to find an appropriate nature-based compound having impact on pests, together with pesticide use, when unavoidable. Toxic or repellent activity could be used for pest control in the field conditions, as well as attractiveness of some compounds for mass trapping, before pests cause significant economic damage.

Author(s):  
Sandra A. Allan

Manipulation of insect behavior can provide the foundation for effective strategies for control of insect crop pests. A detailed understanding of life cycles and the behavioral repertoires of insect pests is essential for development of this approach. A variety of strategies have been developed based on behavioral manipulation and include mass trapping, attract-and-kill, auto-dissemination, mating and host plant location disruption, and push-pull. Insight into application of these strategies for insect pests within Diptera, Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, and Hemiptera/Thysanoptera are provided, but first with an overview of economic damage and traditional control approaches, and overview of relevant behavioral/ecological traits. Then examples are provided of how these different control strategies are applied for each taxonomic group. The future of these approaches in the context of altered crop development for repellency or as anti-feedants, the effects of climate change and the risks of behaviorally-based methods are discussed.


J ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-130
Author(s):  
Daria Smolova ◽  
Avi Friedman

Current social and environmental challenges have led to the rethinking of residential designs. Global warming, food insecurity, and, as a result, costly fresh produce are some of the causes of the reconsideration. Moreover, with obligatory isolation following the global COVID-19 pandemic, some are realizing the importance of nature and air quality in homes. This paper explores the potential integration of indoor living walls (ILWs) in Canadian homes for agricultural and air purification purposes. By reviewing a number of case studies, this paper investigates how the development of such walls can alter the traditional food production chain, while reducing environmental threats. The findings show that current indoor living wall practices can be transformed into a useful source of fresh food, and, to some degree, alter traditional food supply. They can also help in creating inexpensive methods of air purification.


Author(s):  
Kgomotso Lebelo ◽  
Ntsoaki Malebo ◽  
Mokgaotsa Jonas Mochane ◽  
Muthoni Masinde

Historically, chemicals exceeding maximum allowable exposure levels have been disastrous to underdeveloped countries. The global food industry is primarily affected by toxic chemical substances because of natural and anthropogenic factors. Food safety is therefore threatened due to contamination by chemicals throughout the various stages of food production. Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in the form of pesticides and other chemical substances such as Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) have a widely documented negative impact due to their long-lasting effect on the environment. This present review focuses on the chemical contamination pathways along the various stages of food production until the food reaches the consumer. The contamination of food can stem from various sources such as the agricultural sector and pollution from industrialized regions through the air, water, and soil. Therefore, it is imperative to control the application of chemicals during food packaging, the application of pesticides, and antibiotics in the food industry to prevent undesired residues on foodstuffs. Ultimately, the protection of consumers from food-related chemical toxicity depends on stringent efforts from regulatory authorities both in developed and underdeveloped nations.


Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (8) ◽  
pp. 1807 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silke Hemming ◽  
Feije de Zwart ◽  
Anne Elings ◽  
Isabella Righini ◽  
Anna Petropoulou

The global population is increasing rapidly, together with the demand for healthy fresh food. The greenhouse industry can play an important role, but encounters difficulties finding skilled staff to manage crop production. Artificial intelligence (AI) has reached breakthroughs in several areas, however, not yet in horticulture. An international competition on “autonomous greenhouses” aimed to combine horticultural expertise with AI to make breakthroughs in fresh food production with fewer resources. Five international teams, consisting of scientists, professionals, and students with different backgrounds in horticulture and AI, participated in a greenhouse growing experiment. Each team had a 96 m2 modern greenhouse compartment to grow a cucumber crop remotely during a 4-month-period. Each compartment was equipped with standard actuators (heating, ventilation, screening, lighting, fogging, CO2 supply, water and nutrient supply). Control setpoints were remotely determined by teams using their own AI algorithms. Actuators were operated by a process computer. Different sensors continuously collected measurements. Setpoints and measurements were exchanged via a digital interface. Achievements in AI-controlled compartments were compared with a manually operated reference. Detailed results on cucumber yield, resource use, and net profit obtained by teams are explained in this paper. We can conclude that in general AI performed well in controlling a greenhouse. One team outperformed the manually-grown reference.


2015 ◽  
Vol 98 (3) ◽  
pp. 541-549 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joe O Boison ◽  
Sherri B Turnipseed

Abstract Aquaculture is currently one of the most rapidly growing food production industries in the world. The increasing global importance for this industry stems primarily from the fact that it is reducing the gap between the supply and demand for fish products. Commercial aquaculture contributes significantly to the economies of many countries since high-value fish species are a major source of foreign exchange. This review looks at the aquaculture industry, the issues raised by the production of fish through aquaculture for food security, the sustainability of the practice to agriculture, what the future holds for the industry in the next 10-20 years, and why there is a need to have available analytical procedures to regulate the safe use of chemicals and veterinary drugs in aquaculture.


Insects ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 180
Author(s):  
Stefan Möth ◽  
Andreas Walzer ◽  
Markus Redl ◽  
Božana Petrović ◽  
Christoph Hoffmann ◽  
...  

Viticultural practices and landscape composition are the main drivers influencing biological pest control in vineyards. Predatory mites, mainly phytoseiid (Phytoseiidae) and tydeoid mites (Tydeidae), are important to control phytophagous mites (Tetranychidae and Eriophyidae) on vines. In the absence of arthropod prey, pollen is an important food source for predatory mites. In 32 paired vineyards located in Burgenland/Austria, we examined the effect of landscape composition, management type (organic/integrated), pesticide use, and cover crop diversity of the inter-row on the densities of phytoseiid, tydeoid, and phytophagous mites. In addition, we sampled pollen on vine leaves. Typhlodromus pyri Scheuten was the main phytoseiid mite species and Tydeus goetzi Schruft the main tydeoid species. Interestingly, the area-related acute pesticide toxicity loading was higher in organic than in integrated vineyards. The densities of phytoseiid and tydeoid mites was higher in integrated vineyards and in vineyards with spontaneous vegetation. Their population also profited from an increased viticultural area at the landscape scale. Eriophyoid mite densities were extremely low across all vineyards and spider mites were absent. Biological pest control of phytophagous mites benefits from less intensive pesticide use and spontaneous vegetation cover in vineyard inter-rows, which should be considered in agri-environmental schemes.


2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 585-591 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. S. R. LUCCA ◽  
L. H. P. NÓBREGA ◽  
L. F. A. ALVES ◽  
C. T. A. CRUZ-SILVA ◽  
F. P. PACHECO

ABSTRACTThe use of natural substances for pest control in agriculture is, economically, a viable option and has benefits for both the humanbeing and the environment, due to its low persistence and toxicity. Thus, this trial aimed on determining the insecticidal potential of the extracts and essential oils of fennel (Foeniculum vulgare Mill.), anise (Pimpinella anisum L.) and clove (Caryophillus aromaticus L.) to control Brevicoryne brassicae L. in kale (Brassica oleracea var. acephala DC.). The treatments were: fennel, anise, cloves extracts at 10%; fennel, anise, cloves oils at 1% and control with distilled water. The mortality tests were carried out with aphids in laboratory, with three replications, after 1, 12, 24, 48 and 72 hours. During laboratory trials , it was found out that fennel oil at 1% showed the best rate of mortality on aphid nymphs (70% at 72 h), followed by clove extract at 10% with 37% mortality. Tests in pots were only carried out only with cloves extracts at 10% and fennel oil at 1% treatment, in which such efficiency was alsoindicated on aphid nymphs.


2020 ◽  
pp. 193-205
Author(s):  
José Rafael Linares-Morales ◽  
Arely Prado-Barragán ◽  
Guadalupe Virginia Nevárez-Moorillón

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Somdip Dey ◽  
Suman Saha ◽  
Amit Singh ◽  
Klaus D. Mcdonald-Maier

<div><div><div><p>Food safety is an important issue in today’s world. Traditional agri-food production system doesn’t offer easy traceability of the produce at any point of the supply chain, and hence, during a food-borne outbreak, it is very difficult to sift through food production data to track produce and origin of the outbreak. In recent years, blockchain based food production system has resolved this challenge, however, none of the proposed methodologies makes the food production data easily accessible, traceable and verifiable by consumers or producers using mobile/edge devices. In this paper, we propose FoodSQRBlock (Food Safety Quick Response Block), a blockchain technology based framework, which digitizes the food production information, and makes it easily accessible, traceable and verifiable by the consumers and producers by using QR codes. We also propose a large scale integration of FoodSQRBlock in the cloud to show the feasibility and scalability of the framework, and experimental evaluation to prove that.</p></div></div></div>


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