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PHEROMONES IN THE PEST CONTROL OF INSECTS.

    Controlling and eradicating an insect pest without using chemical methods, which damage the environment, people and cultivations, is possible today thanks to the studies on controlling insects by pheromones conducted over the years.

    Using pheromones helps the decrease of the use of chemical insecticides, generating less pollution to the environment, being biodegradable products generated by the very nature and being used in very small quantities. Pheromones are specific to each species thus controlling the insects pest avoiding killing other insects that could be beneficial and could favour the natural biological balance.

Insects control by means of pheromones traps.

    There are two basic methods of controlling insect pests: the massive pheromones trapper used to attract males, where they get trapped and the original method of confusion, studied in the Institute of Chemical and Environmental Research in Barcelona (Spain).

    When the identity or chemical structure of the pheromone of any specific pest is known, it can be synthesized in the lab and placed in traps to attract males to the plantations, where they get trapped reducing insect population and the damage to crops.

    The most convenient thing to do for the perfect use of the traps is to know the life cycles of each insect pest, when it is active as an adult in every generation and the way it varies with the temperature of the area where it works. It is advisable to use the traps when the first generation begins. The traps are designed according to the targetted type of insect - its size, behaviour and activity. It is also better to control where these traps will be placed because they influence in insect capturing.

Sometimes poeple use the pheromone traps to know the larvae phase of the insects.

    With the method of confusion there is a change of strategy - the new compound inhibit the enzymes that degrade the pheromones, and the males cannot identify or locate where it comes from, being confused by the pheromone excess; thus the fertilization of the species does not take place. It is a form of struggling progressively and ecologically; the pest is not suddenly exterminated but gradually and safely without using toxic chemical insecticides.

If you want to read our other articles on pheromone traps, pine processionary as well as some curiosities on these insects,

 click below.