Biopesticides are natural, biologically occurring compounds that are used to control various agricultural pests infesting plants in forests, gardens, farmlands, etc. There are different types of biopesticides that have been developed from various sources. This paper underscores the utility of biocontrol agents composed of microorganisms including bacteria, cyanobacteria, and microalgae, plant-based compounds, and recently applied RNAi-based technology. These techniques are described and suggestions are made for their application in modern agricultural practices for managing crop yield losses due to pest infestation. Biopesticides have several advantages over their chemical counterparts and are expected to occupy a large share of the market in the coming period.
Iron insufficiency is a worldwide problem in human diets. In cereals like wheat, the bran layer of the grains is an important source of iron. However, the dietary availability of iron in wheat flour is limited due to the loss of the iron-rich bran during milling and processing and the presence of anti-nutrients like phytic acid that keep iron strongly chelated in the grain. The present study investigated the localization of iron and phosphorus in grain tissues of wheat genotypes with contrasting grain iron content using synchrotron-based micro-X-ray fluorescence (micro-XRF) and micro-proton-induced X-ray emission (micro-PIXE). X-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy (XANES) was employed to determine the proportion of divalent and trivalent forms of Fe in the grains. It revealed the abundance of oxygen, phosphorus, and sulphur in the local chemical environment of Fe in grains, as Fe-O-P-R and Fe-O-S-R coordination. Contrasting differences were noticed in tissue-specific relative localization of Fe, P, and S among the different genotypes, suggesting a possible effect of localization pattern on iron bioavailability. The current study reports the shift in iron distribution from maternal to filial tissues of grains during the evolution of wheat from its wild relatives to the present-day cultivated varieties, and thus suggests the value of detailed physical localization studies in varietal improvement programmes for food crops.
Whitefly (Bemisia tabaci) damages field crops by sucking sap and transmitting viral diseases. None of the insecticidal proteins used in genetically modified (GM) crop plants to date are effective against whitefly. We report the identification of a protein (Tma12) from an edible fern, Tectaria macrodonta (Fee) C. Chr., that is insecticidal to whitefly (median lethal concentration = 1.49 μg/ml in in vitro feeding assays) and interferes with its life cycle at sublethal doses. Transgenic cotton lines that express Tma12 at ∼0.01% of total soluble leaf protein were resistant to whitefly infestation in contained field trials, with no detectable yield penalty. The transgenic cotton lines were also protected from whitefly-borne cotton leaf curl viral disease. Rats fed Tma12 showed no detectable histological or biochemical changes, and this, together with the predicted absence of allergenic domains in Tma12, indicates that Tma12 might be well suited for deployment in GM crops to control whitefly and the viruses it carries.
The global economy of the international trade of herbal products has been increasing by 15% annually, with the raw material for most herbal products being sourced from South and Southeast Asian countries. In India, of the 8000 species of medicinal plants harvested from the wild, approximately 960 are in the active trade. With increasing international trade in herbal medicinal products, there is also increasing concern about the widespread adulteration and species admixtures in the raw herbal trade. The adverse consequences of such species adulteration on the health and safety of consumers have only recently begun to be recognised and documented. We provide a comprehensive review of the nature and magnitude of species adulteration in the raw herbal trade, and identify the underlying drivers that might lead to such adulteration. We also discuss the possible biological and chemical equivalence of species that are used as adulterants and substitutes, and the consequences thereof to consumer health and safety, and propose a framework for the development of a herbal trade authentication service that can help regulate the herbal trade market.
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