The commercial development of biofungicides received a significant boost in recent years, primarily because of impressive progress in the isolation and characterization of novel strains of microorganisms that can fulfill the mam characteristics of a biofungicide, which are the c ...
Seedlings of economically important crop plants are attacked by various soilborne pathogenic fungi, such as Pythium, Fusarium, Rhizoctonia, Phytopthora, and others, which cause either seed rot before germination or seedling rot after germination, resulting in billions of dolla ...
During the past 20 yr, more attention than ever has been given to the devel opment of biological methods to control plant diseases. Indeed, the concern for food of high quality, without residues of pesticides, and for a sustainable agri culture that will preserve the fertility of soil, and prevent the po ...
The agricultural industry of the 1990s is challenged to find new methods and materials for controlling pests and diseases. New legtslatton, including the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act, Worker Protection Standard, and Pesticide Reregistratton, are limiting the availability of t ...
In 1985, Pierre Ferron reviewed the status of a “hundred-year-old hypothesis” that the entomopathogemc fungi would one day become integral components of many insect-pest management systems. He concluded his review by stating the need to “define precisely the ecosystems in which these na ...
Baculoviruses of insects have been promoted for their pest control potential forinore than half a century (1). Despite this, only a few have been successful in biological control, and almost none has proven a commercial success, or is used routinely for large-scale Insect controlin industri ...
Entomopathogenic nematodes of the genera Steinernema and Hetero rhabditis (Nematoda: Rhabditida) have emerged as excellent insect biological control agents. This discipline of insect pathology has made enormous strides since Glaser’s discovery more than 60 yr ago of nematodes i ...
Baculovindae is a family of occluded, invertebrate-specific pathogens, consisting of two generathe nucleopolyhedroviruses (NPVs) and granuloviruses. The majority of basic and applied research efforts, as well as commercial endeavors, have been focused on NPVs. In addition to ve ...
Baculoviruses are arthropod-specific viruses that have been utilized as biological control agents since 1930 (1). Several advantages are associated with the use of baculoviruses for pest control, including the host specificity and environmental compatibility attributes th ...
Although botanical insecticides once held a position of importance in the grower’s arsenal of plant protection products, they were almost completely displaced in most industrialized countries by synthetic insecticides in the 1950s and 1960s. However, increasing documentation ...
The potential of fungal pathogens to control unwanted plant species has often been underestimated, primarily because the impact of a pathogen on its host plant within a given region is usually subtle, and only the final population equilibrium is observed (1). Moderate levels of pathogenici ...
The public’s demand for safe, biologically based weed controls has created an impetus to commercialize biological weed-control agents. Numerous plant pathogens have shown excellent potential as biological herbicides over the years, but there has been very little commercial succ ...
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates pesticides under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA). Under FIFRA, the EPA is authorized to regulate pesticides to ensure that their use does not cause un ...
In 1962, the State Agricultural Experiment Station Directors recognized the needs of growers and requested the then US Department of Agriculture’ s Cooperative State Research Service (CSRS) to initiate an interregional research project that would coordinate the agricultural co ...
A large number of factors can potentially affect the economic feasibility of any given biological control product. These include the impact on the target pest, market size and spectrum of pests affected by the biocontrol agent, vari ability of field performance, costs of production, and a numb ...
A range of biopesticides, including bacteria, viruses, fungi, nematodes, protozoa, and beneficial insects as active ingredients, are now commercially available in Europe for control of insect pests, fungal and bacterial diseases, and weeds.
Biopesticides have little raison d’�tre unless they are biologically specific. Their perceived advantage of mammalian safety over chemicals has been eroded by new developments in pesticide chemistry (1) and with possible rare exceptions, biopesticides will be targeted at “niche m ...
Pesticide analysis is generally conducted with one of two objectives: product analysis to determine the quantity of active ingredient in a manufactured product or formulation, or residue analysis to determine amounts of material resulting from application or use. In addition, the ana ...
Although dose acquisition is a process common to all pesticides, including biopesticides, the information on use of microbial agents is dominated by bioinsecticides, reflecting the need to manage the many insect pests in all sec tors of crop production. This chapter, therefore, deals with a ...
Resistance to pesticides has evolved in more than 500 species of insect pests and more than 70 species of weeds (1, 2). It was once believed by some that resistance would be unlikely for biopesticides because they were natural, already exposed to eons of evolution, and of short persistence However, bec ...