Biopesticides: An option for the biological pest control

Abstract

The indiscriminate use of synthetic pesticides and the problems that its cause to human health, agriculture and the environment is comment, this paper also present general aspects about of biopesticides, and their uses in the biological pest control. By the nature these can be safely used in a sustainable agriculture. An example is the use of botanical pesticides whose active ingredient are the terpenes, alkaloids and phenolics, these have insecticide effects for many agriculture pests; also its are less expensive, are biodegradable and safe for humans and the environment, however havelittle residuality. Microbial pesticides are being introduced successfully to pests control in important crops such as; coffee, sugar cane, beans and corn. These products contain bacteria, fungi, viruses or nematodes. However, few entomopathogenic agents have been developed as effective biocontrol agents, one of them is the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Berlinier) for control of armyworm Spodoptera frugiperda (J.E Smith) covering about 74% of the market,fungus 10% , viruses 5% and 11% others. Other upstanding case is the use of the fungus Beauveria bassiana (Balsamo)against bean weevil Acanthoscelides obtectus (Say). Biopesticides have shown that when are used properly in the biological pest control its favor the practice of a sustainable agriculture, with less dependence of chemical insecticides.

Keywords

• Biological control
• Biopesticides
• Sustainable agriculture
• Pesticides.