Advances in Measures of Reducing Chemical Pesticides to Control Plant Diseases

In order to provide the technological support for further implementing measures of reducing chemical pesticide to control plant diseases,the research progress on non-chemical pesticide measures to control plant diseases are reviewed from the aspects of agricultural control,botanical pesticide control and microbial pesticide control,and the development prospects are proposed,including accelerating innovative research on botani-cal pesticide control such as Chinese herb extracts,and screening microbial pesticides from valuable bio-control bacteria or plant endophyte metabolites for commercial production and utilization.

Operating pesticide use reduction within the boundary of food security in peri-urban settings

Pesticide use in peri-urban areas afects the urban enviroment and public health,and reducing the use may present food security isues for urban dwellers.In this study,we explore how a muiallyadopted goal of a 20%reduetion in pesticide use could be achieved,along with local food security and environmental implica-tions,for Shanghai located in the densely populated East China.A regional Shanghai Agricultural Sector Model inorporating district-and technology-varying crop budgets,was developed to simulate the efects of pesticide reduction policy.Here we find that achieving the reduction goal had the largest implications in districts with high pesticide use totals and intensities,potentially reducing pesticide non point source pollution in the Yangtze River Estuary and Dianshan Lake;the production levels of rice and leafy vegetables would be most afected;and adopting machinery that allows more precise pesticide application modulates these results.Moreover,imposing the requlrements at the district-level caused more severe local food security concerns,and less environmental benefits.Furthermore,a closed Shanghai's agricultural economy would subtantally enlarge the regional het-erogeneity in the above-mentioaned outcomes.Exploring the ffects of a quantity control policy on current-use pesticides at diferent aggregation levels has important implications for regulating the use of agrochemicals.

Efficient polymer-mediated delivery system for thiocyclam: Nanometerization remarkably improves the bioactivity toward green peach aphids

The unscientific application of synthetic pesticides has brought various negative effects on the environment,hindering the sustainable development of agriculture.Nanoparticles can be applied as carriers to improve pesticide delivery,showing great potential in the development of pesticide formulation in recent years.Herein,a star polymer(SPc)was constructed as an efficient pesticide nanocarrier/adjuvant that could spontaneously assemble with thiocyclam or monosultap into a complex,through hydrophobic association and hydrogen bonding,respectively,with the pesticide-loading contents of 42.54%and 19.3%.This complexation reduced the particle sizes of thiocyclam from 543.54 to 52.74 nm for pure thiocyclam,and 3814.16 to 1185.89 nm for commercial preparation(cp)of thiocyclam.Interestingly,the introduction of SPc decreased the contact angles of both pure and cp thiocyclam on plant leaves,and increased the plant uptake of cp thiocyclam to 2.4–1.9 times of that without SPc.Meanwhile,the SPc could promote the bioactivity of pure/cp thiocyclam against green peach aphids through leaf dipping method and root application.For leaf dipping method,the 50%lethal concentration decreased from 0.532 to 0.221 g/L after the complexation of pure thiocyclam with SPc,and that decreased from 0.390 to 0.251 g/L for cp thiocyclam.SPc seems a promising adjuvant for nanometerization of both pure and cp insecticides,which is beneficial for improving the delivery efficiency and utilization rate of pesticides.