Recent Advances in Plant Extracts and Essential Oils as Potential Alternative Biocontrol Products

Dear Colleagues,

The indiscriminate use of synthetic chemical pesticides is frequently associated with environmental and toxicological problems, resulting in an increased interest and enormous research efforts focused on new environmentally benign solutions. In this context, botanicals and plant-derived pesticides, such as essential oils, have been advocated for as sustainable alternatives in pest management strategies. Such perceived advantages are attributed to their low environmental and mammalian risk, higher specificity and safety to non-target organisms and lower risk of resistance development. However, despite their proven biological activities and the overwhelming research efforts, the large-scale commercialization and use of plant-based pesticides is still lacking. Besides raw material availability, price and legislation barriers, rapid degradation under field conditions and the need for frequent reapplications are often cited as the major limitations to the field performance of botanical insecticides in terms of both efficacy and persistence.

This Special Issue aims to present recent advances in research on botanical pesticides, including the identification and chemical characterization of pesticidal plants and their active molecules, evaluation of their bioactivities against pests and disease vectors, selectivity to non-target organisms, molecular and physiological mechanisms of action as well as nanotechnology-based new solutions for botanicals’ application in integrated pest management.

Prof. Dr. Khalid Haddi
Prof. Dr. Geraldo Andrade Carvalho
Guest Editors

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