Role of Plant Essential Oils in Pest Management

Abstract

The growing concern over potential hazards from chemical pesticide safety among consumers and potential harm to the environment has culminated in consideration of natural management strategies of pests. Because they are complementary to most crop production systems, biopesticides based on plants can be integrated into pest management systems. Plant essential oils (EOs) can replace the more persistent non-natural pesticides in protecting the environment from the accumulation of chemicals reduce resistance and increase crop productivity. In addition, they possess low mammalian toxicity, broad-spectrum activity, and degrade rapidly in foodstuffs. In addition to exhibiting distinctive properties compared with synthetic pesticides, including high levels of pest toxicity and reduced toxicity toward non-target organisms, EOs possess contact, feeding deterrence, fumigant toxicity, oviposition, and repellent properties. In this chapter, we review the sources of EOs, their insecticidal activities, constituents, and mode of action and discuss their synergism and formulation with encapsulation for producing nanoinsecticidal products.KeywordsEssential oilsArthropod pestsInsecticidal activity