Biopesticide activity of plant extract: DE

Natural products from plants have attracted researchers in recent years as potential sources of new pesticides. The folkloric use of higher terrestrial plants by the natives of various parts of the world as pesticidal and antimicrobial materials has been well known. Perhaps, one of the early plants so recorded as pesticidal material was tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum).The use of tobacco leaf infusion to kill aphids led to the isolation of the alkaloid, nicotine, while the chemical investigation of the Japanese plant, Roh-ten (Rhododendron hortense) in 1902 showed rotenone, as the active constituent. In this class of age-old pesticidal plants are species belonging to the genus Chrysanthemum found in Kenya and other highlands in Africa, which are the sources of the all purpose and very successful insecticidal extract, pyrethrum, and the active constituents, the pyrethrins .Tens of thousands of natural products have been identified from plants and hundreds of thousands are yet to be isolated and screened for their bioactivities.

Pages: 216, Paperback, LAP Lambert Academic Publishing