Functional Plants for Ecological Control of Agricultural Pests

Dear Colleagues,

Currently, all trades and professions are focused on global ecological and green transformations. Agriculture is also undergoing ecological and green transformations pertaining to crop production from high inputs of fossil fertilizers to utilizing organic fertilizers and green manures, and from high inputs of chemical pesticides to utilizing green pesticides and ecological control tactics. For the ecological control of agricultural pests (including insects, pathogens, weeds, etc.), functional plants have great advantages and high potential application efficiency.

Functional plants are those with specific ecological functions in agroecosystem, e.g., trap plants, repellent plants, insectary plants, nectar plants, banker plants, accompany plants, and even functional crops and cover crops, etc., due to their unique ecological roles, and functional plants are increasingly attracting the interest of farmers, researchers, scientists, and even government officials, as they are utilized for the control and management of agricultural pests during field production. Moreover, many types of functional plants are also commonly used as Chinese medicinal herbs with high medicinal values for farmers to obtain high incomes as they cultivate these plants in fields. And many functional components and active substances can also be extracted from these functional plants to make plant-derived pesticides used as green pesticides instead of chemical pesticides for the ecological control of agricultural pests.

Prof. Dr. Fajun Chen
Dr. Xiaoling Tan
Dr. Xiaoguang Liu
Guest Editors

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