Biopesticides of plant origin Edited by Catherine Regnault-Roger, Bernard J.R. Philogène and Charles Vincent ISBN 2 7430 0675 7, published in 2005 by Lavoisier, hard cover, b/w, 313 pages Price - please request a quote

Plants produce a large number of substances that have activity on other animals and plants. These products can be defensive such as toxins to repel browsing animals or insects or allelochemicals to reduce competition form other plants, or they can be attractants where cohabitation with another species is beneficial to the plant. Plant preparations have been used since antiquity for pest control.

In the more recent past industry has favoured synthetic crop protection agents, the products of massive chemical synthesis and screening programs. While these products have on the whole been spectacularly successful they have been blamed for polluting the environment and reducing biodiversity. Biopesticides provide another avenue for the development of agrochemicals that could be more biodegradable and environmentally sustainable.

Table of contents

• Botanicals: yesterday's and today's promises.
• New insecticides of plant origin for the third millennium?
• Phytochemical discovery of new botanical insecticides.
• Organic chemistry's contribution to the understanding of biopesticide activity of natural products from higher plants.
• Plant natural products as synergists.
• Sulphur compounds derived from Allium and crucifers and their potential applications in crop protection.
• The role of phytoecdysteroids in the control of phytophagous insects.
• Idioblast oil cells as a source of new botanical products with biological activity.
• Use of secondary plant products to protect the seeds of a legume, cowpea. Effects on insect pests and their parasitoids.
• Allelochemicals: tomorrow’s herbicides.
• The role of phenols in plant defence mechanisms.
• Nematicidal and nematode-resistant plants.
• Impact of plant proteins, expressed in transgenic plants on beneficial insects (parasitoids and pollinators).
• Synthesis of odorant reception-suppressing agents, odorant-binding proteins (OBPs) and chemosensory proteins (CSPs): molecular targets for pest management.
• Vegetable oils and monoterpenes in agrochemical formulations.
• Problems and opportunities for the commercialization of botanical insecticides.
• Appendix: post-harvest systems and biopesticides in Africa .