The Use Of Plant Parts In Pest Control Activities In Traditional Sri Lankan Agricultural Systems

Abstract Sri Lankan Agriculturehas a very long history and was based on very successful and environmentally healthy principles.The insect Pest management practices known as Kem methods were very successfully performed with the use of plant based materials and cultural practices in the form of religion based rituals. Even without a distinct knowledge of the chemical constituents of the plants they were using the ancient Sri Lankan rice farmers had identified a set of indigenous plants to develop this successful system of plant protection. These methods of kemhad different modes of actions of pesticidal effect sticky trapsand light traps. With the development of the modern technology the hidden success of the kemmethods can be explained as the right selection of the chemical basis of the plants on the respective insect species. Burning kaduruCerberamanghassticks near the paddy fields was a kem effective against insect pests as a light trap as well as a use of chemical repellent. Cycasin is one of the constituents of the cycasCycascircinalis and it has insecticidal and inhibitory properties. This clearly reveals that the modern findings match with the ancient fundamentals of kem. There are many plant species of this nature like War26257CalotropisgiganteaMellaDiospyrosovalifolia KappettiyaCroton laccifer DalukEuphorbia antiquorum etc. that were very systematically fitted with the traditional practices. This effort is to identify the scientific fundamentals of the traditional kem methods used in pest management that has been neglected at present Agricultural systems.