Influence of a Prolong Application of Mineral Oils on Bulb Yield, Quality of Cut Flowers and Spread of Viruses in Tulip Cultivation

Use of paraffin oils in agriculture and beyond: back to the future

“…Since modern formulations of petroleum oils are considered as biorational insecticides, their application sites have been further expanded, including greenhouses, aquatic areas and animal premises, or even residential premises such as commercial industrial or medical establishments (US EPA 2007 ). Hence, petroleum oils efficacy has been evaluated in a broad range of host plants and pest species, including fruits (Liu and Stansly 1994 ; Northover and Schneider 1996 ; Liang and Liu 2002 ), vegetables (Reddy and Bautista 2012 ), flowers and ornamental plants (Miller 1989 ; Larew and Locke 1990 ; Marcinek et al 2018 ), industrial and forage crops (Mensah et al 1995 , 2005 ; Kumar 2015 ), and pests species of health importance, such as mosquitoes (Micks 1970 ; Micks and Berlin 1970 ), bed bugs (Zha et al 2018 ) and external parasites of livestock (USDA 2015 ).…”

“…Petroleum oils can be used also in floriculture. Marcinek et al ( 2018 ) tested the influence of a prolong application of petroleum oils on bulb quality, quality of cut flowers and spread of viruses in tulip cultivations and reported that the oil preparations used at concentrations between 1.0 and 1.5% had no negative influence or phytotoxicity on stem and petals lengths at tulips grown in the field, or in the quality of obtained flowers during tulip forcing in a greenhouse. Furthermore, although the authors observed a positive effect in reducing diseases transferred by aphids, the tested oils could not ensure a complete plant protection from infections.…”