Different plant families as bioresource for pesticides

Abstract

Consistent and injudicious applications of pesticides lead to the development of resistance in insects, destruction of beneficial organisms and increases in residual problems, thereby posing a threat to human health and its ecological partners in the living biome. The need of the future is to develop an eco-friendly approach to combat insect pests that should be able to regulate pest populations by exploring naturally occurring botanicals including extracts of plants, insecticidal plants and plant essential oils which may serve as useful repellents, antifeedants, insecticides, fungicides, weedicides, nematicides, molluscicides, etc. The most promising botanicals for use are species of the families Meliaceae, Rutaceae, Malvaceae, Asteraceae and Canellaceae. The results obtained in this review overwhelmingly confirmed the activity of a reasonable percentage of plants. Thus, these results will serve as useful guides in the collection of plants for laboratory and field research studies which may lead to the commercialization of plant biopesticides in the future.