To mitigate potentially
severe food shortages due to the exponential
growth of the global population, it is of paramount importance to
improve the yield and quality of globally harvested food crops. As
pest control contributes to both these aspects, the development of
safe and effective pesticides is one of the main strategies pursued
in this direction in the context of agricultural chemistry. During
our investigation of natural pesticides, a supercritical CO
2
fluid extract of
Alcea nudiflora
L.
was found to exert extremely potent insecticidal activity against
aphids (
Macrosiphum euphorbiae
) and
cowpea seed beetles (
Callosobruchus maculatus
) with LC
50
values of 0.03 mg/mL (24 h exposure, contact
method). The facts that their insecticidal activity is in the most
potent class among the essential oils known to date, and that the
extract did not show any toxicity toward beneficial insects such as
ladybugs (
Coccinella magnifica
) and
European honeybees (
Apis mellifera
Linnaeus),
indicate that this extract could be a good, natural, and safe new
pesticide candidate. A compositional analysis of this extract was
carried out using GC/MS.