Importance of Secondary Plant Metabolites in Plant Protection against Agricultural Insect Pests

Pest management is facing the economic and ecological challenge worldwide due to the human and environmental hazards caused by majority of chemical pesticides. Identification of novel effective insecticidal compounds is essential to combat increasing resistance buildup. Secondary plant metabolites have long been as good alternatives to the chemical insecticides for insect pest managements because it reputedly pose little threat to environment or human health. A number of plant have been considered for use as insect antifeedants, repellents, growth regulators (IGRs) and toxicants. In the context of agricultural pest management, secondary plant metabolism are best suited for use in organic food production in industrialized countries but can play a much greater role in the production and postharvest protection of food in developing countries. Improvement in the understanding of plant allele chemical mechanisms of activity offer new prospects for using these substances in crop protection. Essential oils and plant extracts proved to be safe available alternatives to the synthetic pesticides in plant protection in field and during storage. En-capsulation of essential oils inside nano-particle is a new technology of formulation increasing persistence of the active ingredients, achieve high stability of efficacy, which used as delivery systems and considered as a promising strategy to deliver essential oils in agriculture.