Exploring Plant Extracts for Optimal Pest Management and Environmental Balance

Dear Colleagues,

In agricultural production and ecological environment protection, pest control has always been an important topic. Although traditional chemical pesticides can effectively control pests to a certain extent, they also bring many problems, such as environmental pollution, increased pest resistance, and harm to non-target organisms. As people pay more and more attention to the ecological environment and food safety, finding more environmentally friendly, safe, and effective pest control methods has become a research hotspot.

Plant extracts such as alkaloids, terpenoids, flavonoids, volatile oils, and other compounds do not remain in nature after their application, which drastically reduces the chances of environmental contamination and promotes higher rates of environmental preservation. In addition, these chemicals are less toxic and better suited to the economic conditions of small farms due to the usual presence of several bioactive compounds, low persistence in the environment, and generally low cost of use, especially for small farms with limited income. Thus, an option that meets these conditions is the prospection of plants, which has aroused great interest in the possibility of discovering new bioactive compounds in order to originate, for example, botanical insecticides. These act synergistically, presenting attractive, dislodging, or repellent characteristics with phagodeterrent action. In addition, they include substances capable of altering the growth and development of some insects, many of them being produced in response to insect attack, and thus employed in the control and monitoring of insect pests. Another aspect of this topic worth considering is that the utilization of plants with insecticidal properties sees their use facilitated in the form of crude extracts, which is an option for farmers who exploit small areas, and also in protected crops. However, even before all the advantages presented by several authors in their studies became apparent to the research community, the use of plants in the control of insects already required research to discover what aspects are related to the effects of botanical insecticides on non-target organisms. In this research topic, we invite the submission of articles focusing on all types of plant–insect interaction, evaluating the chemical compositions of plants and their function on pest management and environmental protection.

We welcome all types of articles published by Agronomy that contribute to (but are not limited to) the following topics:

• Pest–plant interactions: the abilities of each;
• Phytochemical components and biological activity of plant extracts;
• Sustainable agriculture practices;
• Pest management and control;
• Biochemical, physiological, and molecular mechanisms of insects against botanical insecticides;
• Insect response to botanical insecticides in agroecosystems;
• Impact of botanical insecticides on natural enemies and microorganisms on overall insect biodiversity in agroecosystems;
• Evolutionary mechanisms of insect adaptation to deal with botanical insecticides.

Prof. Dr. Rosilda Mara Mussury
Guest Editor

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• plant extracts
• pest management
• ecology
• bioinsecticide
• alternate control
• agroecological