Chapter 12 - Pesticide toxicity and their impact on plant growth, active constituents and productivity

Abstract

Globally, pesticides are the main line of defense to salvage the crop’s damage from harmful pests. Numerous pesticides with different modes of action have been used for the management of insect pests for centuries. The pesticides significantly contribute to the improvement of quality along with the number of crops by managing the population of pests below an economic threshold level. However, the indiscriminate pesticidal uses lead to a negative impact on the environment like the destruction of biodiversity, resurgence, and resistance of insects. Besides of harmful effects of pesticides on humans, birds, aquatic organisms, and natural resources (soil and water) their implementation also triggers toxicity to plants themselves and adversely suppresses their growth phases. Toxicity of pesticides may cause a reduction in the chlorophyll pigment, reduced photosynthetic efficiency, and protein contents. The visible symptoms of pesticide toxicity include yellowing, stunting, necrosis, chlorosis, vein clearing, epinasty, and hyponasty on plants. Thus, it can also be responsible for the reduction of yield in crops. Therefore, the current chapter highlights the pesticides toxicity, symptoms of pesticides toxicity on different crops, the impact of pesticides toxicity on the plant growth, active constituents as well as production of crop plants. In the end, the chapter discusses prospects of pesticide use, and the methods to reduce pesticide toxicity.