Pest control research, current

A review of the scientific literature produced the last 10 years (1982-1992) provides a panorama of the state of affairs with GVs for insect control. The research and development of GVs, like that of other pest control agents, follows a pattern and a progression. In this chapter, I have chosen to organize the current state of research and development of GVs into three phases (1) Exploratory Phase (2) Preregistration Phase and (3) Registration Phase. 

The use of classical agrochemicals will be one of the strategies for effective and economic pest control. At a reduced rate, newer compositions will be developed and registered and these new chemicals will on the whole be more highly active than current materials. Their use will reduce human and environmental hazards, but their development and commercialization will require huge investments for the research required to guarantee their safety. 

Easwaramoorthy S, Sankaranarayanan C. Biological control of sugarcane pests with entomopathogenic nematodes. In Hussaini SS, Rabindra RJ, Nagesh M, editors. Current status of research on entomopathogenic nematodes in India. Bangalore Project Directorate of Biological Control 2003. pp. 143-152. 

The avermectins, a family of compounds with potent anthelmintic, insecticidal and acaricidal activity, have vividly demonstrated that fermentation products can have entirely unanticipated activities. Besides their utility in animals, they show great promise for the control of insect pests of plants. Although antibiotics have found only a limited role in the control of plant diseases, the desire to find environmentally acceptable alternatives to the chemicals currently used has prompted new research efforts to discover fermentation products for use as pesticides. 

Spiders are an important order of carnivorous arachnids having a great impact on many ecosystems. Because most of their prey consists of insects, they can play an important role in controlling pest insects in agricultural crops. There are currently about 36000 described species, out of an estimated overall number of 60000-80000 species (Platnick, 1999). Unlike the situation with insects (Francke and Schulz, 1999), pheromones and other semiochemicals of arachnids, and especially spiders, have received little attention from researchers. What information is available on the use of semiochemicals by spiders will be reviewed and discussed in this chapter. 

One aspect of the current work on chemical control of insects centers on the use of sex pheromones as lures. Recently, chemists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture s Boll Weevil Research Laboratory isolated and synthesized components of the sex attractant of the male boll weevil, a pest responsible for a prodigious loss of cotton crop in the United States. A stereoselective synthesis of the active pheromone was later carried out at the Zoecon Corporation, and is outlined below. A key feature of this synthesis is the photochemical cycloaddition of ethylene to 3-methylcyclohex-2-enone, followed by oxidative disconnection of the resulting c/s-fused bicycio[4.2.0] octane (A) thereby generating the cis disposed side-chains. 

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