Smoke of Capsicum baccatumL. var. baccatum (Solanaceae) repels nymphs of Triatoma infestans(Klug) (Hemiptera: Reduviidae)

Control of the Chagas disease vector, Triatoma infestans(Klug) (Hemiptera: Reduviidae) with synthetic pesticides in Bolivia has become increasingly inefficient due to the development of resistance in the insects. In the Chaco region of Bolivia, guaraní populations have approached the problem by fumigating their houses with the smoke of native plants. Through interviews and field work with local guides, the main plant used by the guaraníes was collected and later identified as Capsicum baccatumL. var. baccatum(Solanaceae). In choice bioassays, filter papers exposed to the smoke of the plant repelled nymphs of T. infestans. Activity remained significant after storing the exposed filter papers for 9 days. Chemical analysis of smoke and literature data suggested that capsaicinoids present in the smoke were responsible for the repellent effect. The data presented provide a rationale for the use of C. baccatumvar. baccatumto control the Chagas vector bythe guaraní populations.

An integrated pest management program outperforms conventional practices for tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) in Cambodia

For several years, pest management in tomato production in Cambodia has generally focused on the use of synthetic pesticides. We compared conventional pest management (farmers’ traditional practices) with an IPM program on 12 farms in the northwestern part of Cambodia. The IPM program combined cultural, biological, and chemical practices. We found that IPM practices reduced aphid damage by 46% and diseases such as Fusarium wilt and damping-off were substantially reduced. Our results indicate that the IPM package increased tomato yield and income by an average of 23% and 34%, respectively, compared to conventional practices during both dry and rainy seasons.

Consistency of attack level of coffee berry borer (Hypotenemus hampei Ferr.) on organic and conventional arabica coffee plantation in Aceh Tengah District, Aceh Province, Indonesia

A study has been conducted for 3 consecutive years since 2019 to 2021 to investigate the influence of cultivation system of Arabica coffee against the attack of the coffee berry borer (Hypothenemus hampei Ferr.) in Arabica coffee plantations in Aceh Tengah District, Aceh Province, Indonesia. We observed the attack level of H. hampei on Arabica coffee plants that were cultivated both organically and conventionally. The results showed that for three years observation, in general, the attack level of coffee berry borer (CBB) on organic and conventional coffee plantations was not significantly different. Observations in 2019 showed that the attack level of CBB on organic coffee plantations ranged from 27-34 % and on conventional coffee plantations ranging from 33-49 %. Observations in 2020 showed that the attack rate of CBB on organic and conventional coffee ranged from 20-40 % and 28-41%, respectively, while observations in 2021 were 25-26 % and 27-28 %. The results of these studies indicate that the level of CBB attack on organic coffee plantations is no different from conventional coffee plantations that routinely use synthetic pesticides. This indicates that in organic coffee plantations, natural enemies have played an important role in suppressing the development of CBB populations. Although the use of synthetic pesticides in conventional coffee plantations can suppress pest populations, it is suspected that these pesticides also play a role in reducing the population of natural enemies of pests. Therefore, organic coffee cultivation is much more profitable, especially it can reduce the cost of buying synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, besides ensuring the safety of coffee farmers, workers, and consumers from harmful chemical contamination from pesticides.

Botanical Pesticides: Use of Plants in pest management

Plants play a vital role in human life since the beginning of life on earth. Plants are not only directly used as a feed and fodder for humans and animals but are also used as drugs, food additives, pesticides, in flavor and fragrances and dye and pigments. The plants produce compounds for their growth and development and also produce secondary metabolites which provide additional properties to plants. These secondary metabolites produced by plant are responsible for these activities. Plants as a whole or in extracts/fractions form have been used as pesticides for protection of plants since thousands of years. Pyrethrum, neem, rotenone are such plants which has been used in many cultures and traditions for crop protection since ages and hold relevance in today’s world as well. The plant extracts contain secondary metabolites which provide protection to plants against pests by either causing mortality of pests or act as repellent to them. They can also impact pests by causing anti-feedancy, toxicity, alters insects behavior during oviposition and mating and inhibition of progeny emergence in pests. Essential oils isolated from the plants have also pesticidal properties. Lemongrass essential oil, Citronella essential oils, Tea tree essential oils and Oregano essential oils are the commonly used essential oils against the pests. In this review, botanical pesticides are discussed and their role in pest management and their advantageous over synthetic pesticides in terms of biodegradability, posing no or low risk to humans, environment and non-target organisms. Also, the future of botanical pesticides is discussed where they can be an alternative to synthetic pesticides if more research is done on their stability, efficacy, safety, modes of action, cost reduction is done.

Bio-nematicides Processing from Chicken Manure Waste Enriched with Trichoderma sp Fungi in Pangkalan Gelebak Village

The negative impact of using synthetic pesticides is harmful to health and damaging the environment. Pesticide residues can endanger health and reduce the competitiveness of agricultural products. The use of pesticides includes synthetic nematicides being suppressed or even avoided. One alternative to nematode control that is safe for health and environmentally friendly is bionematicide in organic chicken manure enriched with Trichoderma sp. Production of bio nematicides is an option to be applied by the farmer. This method of making bio nematicides uses simple technology, is practical, inexpensive, and easy to do at the farm level. In addition, the manufacture of this bionematicide will increase the benefits of chicken manure waste. This Community Service Activity that carried out in Pangkalan Gelebak Village, Rambutan District, Banyuasin Regency, on May 6, 2020. The result of this activity is that the farmers are very enthusiastic and motivated to make bionematicide. The bio nematicide produced is expected to control root-knot nematodes on cultivated plants to increase crop production and reduce dangerous synthetic pesticides. Bio nematicide uses are free from toxic pesticides, safe for health, more environmentally friendly, and will ultimately improve the welfare of farmers

Predatory Capacity and Feeding Preference of Pesticide-Resistant Amblyseius deleoni Muma et Denmark (Mesostigmata: Phytoseiidae)

The population of the predatory mites Amblyseius deleoni had been decreasing due to continuous use of synthetic pesticides in tea plantations. Therefore, this study aimed to select pesticide-resistant individuals from a wild-type population of A. deleoni and to evaluate whether or not the resistant A. deleoni were still sensible as biological control agents. We exposed A. deleoni to (propargite), fungicide (copper oxide) and a neem seed extracts. We found that the propargite-resistant predatory mites consumed larvae and nymphs of Tetranychus urticae more than the control (wild type) (P < 0.05). There was no difference in the number of eggs and adults of T. urticae consumed (P > 0.05). The number of individuals of every stage of T. urticae consumed by copper-oxide resistant A. deleoni was the same (P > 0.05). In general, there were no changes in food preference in the resistant predators to the 3 of pesticides (P > 0.05). There were slight differences on the pattern of predatory capacity among the resistant predators to the three pesticides. Although the predators are resistant to the 3 pesticides, it took longer to consume their prey in comparison to the control. These findings suggested that pesticide-resistant A. deleoni were able to maintain their functions as a biocontrol agent. HIGHLIGHTS The effectiveness of Amblyseius deleoni as a natural predators have decreased due to continuous uses of synthetic pesticides to control pests and diseases on tea plantations Continuous exposure to propargite, CuO and neem seed extracts induced the predatory mites deleoni to develop resistance No significant changes in feeding preference and the predatory capacity of the mite deleoni on T. urticae after becoming resistant to pesticides Exposures deleoni to pesticides may have induced heritable epigenetic changes permanently or just reversible phenotypes without changing the DNA sequence

Nano-Biopesticides as an Emerging Technology for Pest Management

With an increasing world population, the demand for quality food is rising. To meet safe food demand, it is necessary to double or maybe triple agriculture production. Annually, almost 25% of the world crop is destroyed due to pests. During the past few decades, different pesticides, including chemical, synthetic, biological, and botanical have been adopted to achieve adequate results against pests for agriculture interests and plant safety. Globally, more than 200,000 people died every year due to direct chemical and synthetic pesticides poisoning. But these pesticides did not achieve the desired results due to delivery problems, less stability, low biodegradability, less specificity, and high cost. To overcome these problems, the rapidly emerging field of nanotechnology is considered an important achievement in the agriculture sectors in order to improve pest mortality rates and crop production. The nano-biopesticides attained special attention against the insect pests due to their small size (1-100 nm), large surface area, high stability, cost-effectiveness, fever toxicity, and easy field application. The current chapter highlights the relevance of nano-biopesticides for pest insect management on several crops of agricultural concern. The mechanisms of action, delivery, and environmental sustainability of nano-biopesticides are also discussed in the present chapter.

Insecticidal potency of mixtures of plant powders and Actellic SuperTM (Pirimiphos-methyl + Permethrin) on Callosobruchus chinensis F. and Sitophilus zeamais Motch

Insect pests still cause substantial quantitative and qualitative grain loss ranging from 20 to 100% in small holder farming systems in tropical countries. Synthetic pesticides are recommended as stop gap measures for the management of stored product insect pests. However, their application has not been fully exploited in small scale farming due to environmental, health, and economic concerns. As a result, new researches have shifted focus to exploiting pesticidal plants as alternatives to synthetic pesticides. Therefore, the current study evaluated mixtures of plant powders and reduced amount of Actellic superTM (pirimiphos-methyl + permethrin) as alternative insecticide formulation against Callosobruchus chinensis and Sitophilus zeamais. Green grams and wheat grains were mixed with a mixture of plant powders in the ratios of 1:1, 1:3 and 1:9 to obtain four rates (0.0, 2.0, 6.0 and 10%w/w). Grains and plant powders were also mixed with reduced amount (10, 25, and 50 %) of recommended rate of Actellic SuperTM to obtain dosages as above. Twenty unsexed adults, 1-5 day old S. zeamais and C. chinensis were introduced into treated grains. The mixture of C. lusitanica: T. vogelii powders in the ratios of 1:1, 1:3 and 1:9 caused mortality in C. chinensis of 55, 95 and 85%, respectively. At the same ratio, E. saligna: L. camara mixture produced mortality in S. zeamais of 77, 82, and 85% respectively. In mixture of C. lusitanica and T. vogelii and reduced amount of Actellic SuperTM by 50% the mortality of C. chinensis was 85 and 80 % respectively. Similarly, E. saligna and L. camara and reduced amount of Actellic SuperTM by 50% caused a mortality of S. zeamais of 48 and 97% respectively. The application of plant powders and reduced amounts of synthetic insecticide has the potential to be applied in stored product pest control

Efficacy of Essential Oils from Ocimum kenyense as a Biopesticide against Aphis gosypii, Thrips tabaci and Bemisia tabaci.

Natural sources of biopesticides such as plants and microorganisms are widely employed for pest management globally. Over the last five decades, the use of biopesticides has been explored as a safer alternative to synthetic pesticides. This study determined the repellence and contact toxicity of essential oils from Ocimum kenyense plant against Thrips tabaci, Bemisia tabaci, and Aphis gosypii. The essential oils (Eos) were extracted from dry leaves by hydrodistillation using the Clevenger apparatus for 8 hours. The composition of essential oils was qualitatively and quantitatively analysed using GC-MS, while ATR-FTIR was used to determine the functional groups. The major compound ion in the Eos was 1,8-Cionele while the major phytochemical identified was Eucalyptol Bioassay of the crude extracts were carried out on T. tabaci, B. tabaci, and A. gosypii. Contact toxicity and repellency tests against mixed-sex adult pests were carried out on T. tabaci, B. tabaci, and A. gosypii. In contact toxicity, five different concentrations were prepared and each was replicated five times. Acetone was used as a negative control, while permethrin, a commercial chemical pesticide was used as a positive control. The LD50 of the essential oils was determined by Probit analysis SPSS version 26.0. The response to the treatments was observed after 24 hours by using a blunt object probing and the pests that did not respond were counted as dead. It was found that essential oils from O. kenyense had the lowest LD50 of 0.127 µL against A. gosypii. This implies that O. kenyense can be used as a contact toxicant against A. gosypii. Repellency tests were carried out at four different concentrations. N, N-Diethyltoluamide (DEET) repellent from a commercial mosquito repellent was used to compare the effectiveness of the essential oils against commercial repellents. The repellency test responses were observed after 1 hour and the data was used to determine the correlation between different levels of concentration of Eos and percentage repellency of Eos of O. kenyense leaves carried out at α=0.05. There was a high correlation of 1.000 between the increase in concentration of Eos and repellency against A. gosypii, T. tabaci and B. tabaci. The results were statistically significant and (P<0.05, α=0.05). Therefore, essential oils from O. kenyense can be used as a contact toxicant biopesticide against A. gosypii and a repellent biopesticide against A. gosypii, T. tabaci and B. tabaci.

POTENTIAL OF BEAUVERIA BASSIANA ON THE INTENSITY OF THE BEMESIA TABACI PEST IN HORTICULTURAL PESTS

This study aims to analyze the potency of Beauveria bassiana (Bb) and the best concentration on the population of whitefly Bemesia tabaci on horticultural crops. The method used was a Randomized Block Design (RAK) on eggplant and chili plants with 4 treatments, namely control, Bb 100g/10ltr water, 150g/10ltr water and 200g/10ltr water. Each treatment was repeated 5 times. Data analysis used analysis of variance and continued with the BNT test. The results of the potency test of Beauveria bassiana have the best concentration at 200g/10ltr of water. The average whitefly population on eggplant plants was 65.57%, the population decreased to 6.37% and chili with an average population of 39.37% chili, the population decreased to 15.87%. This is also influenced by agricultural systems in eggplant fields which often rely on synthetic pesticides which cause pests to become resistant and also destroy natural enemies. compared to whitefly pest populations in chili fields which often use organic materials that are far from pest resistance and anti-natural enemies. In addition, the leaves of the eggplant plant are larger than the chili leaves which allow them to lay more eggs and also have a number of trichomes as a shelter for whitefly from natural enemies (predators). The conclusion of the study was that Beauveria Bassiana had good potency at a concentration of 200g/10ltrair against the whitefly Bemesia tabaci on horticultural crops, both eggplant and chili plants. It is suggested to analyze the relationship between leaf structure and preference level of whitefly on horticultural crops.