Preface

Insecticides are products that help to minimise the damage to plants, animals and human beings by controlling pest insects. From the point of view of protecting cultivated or wildgrowing plants, insects are the most important group of pests because theyrepresent the most abundant animal group. Of the approximately 1.2 million known insect species, 5,000 to 10,000 are economically noxious,and their influence on reduced quantity and quality of plants depends on numerous abiotic and biotic factors. The most important biotic factor is the role of humans, who with appropriate control measures for pest insects can achieve the desired result – the reduction of individual abundance under the economic threshold of damage. However,with unsuitable control measures,humans can also demolish the natural balance in agroecosystems,resulting in larger noxiousness of harmful organisms or a de‐ creased production economy.

Until the Second World War, only some insecticides were known. Some inorganic substan‐ ces (arsenious, leaden, baric) were used to control biting insects;on smaller scales, plant ex‐ tracts (tobacco, rotenone) were used against sucking insects; and carbolines or mineral oils were usedfor thewinter spraying of fruit trees. Close to and after the Second World War, organic insecticides were chemically synthesised, and this method spread worldwide in the fifties.These synthesised insecticides were chlorinate carbon hydrogen (DDT, lindane, en‐ drine) and organic phosphor esters, which control biting and sucking insects.The develop‐ ment ofcarbamates, synthetic pyretroids, neonicotinoids, octadiazyonids, antifeedants, and inhibitors and regulators of insect development followed.The last two groups along with natural and plant insecticides are an important part of integrated plant protection and other forms of environmentally friendly production of food, ornamental plants or forage feed. Their efficacies, when compared to the groups of insecticidesfirst mentioned,areseveral times smaller but they can offer protection measures (usage of pheromone traps, colored sticky boards, natural enemies, usage of resistant plant varieties, plant hygiene, etc.)when combined with other plants to attain better synergy and consequently reduce the abundance of pest insects.

Experts and users of insecticides are aware of the great importance of this group of plant protection products in providing sufficient quantities of food for the fast-growing human population and feed for livestock, which isan important food source for the majority of the human population.Still, many negative examples of improper usage of insecticides from the past and present warn us about the great attention necessary when using insecticides. The application of insecticides, especially the improper application, can cause many negative outcomes. The number of selective insecticide products is relatively small; thus, many insec‐ ticides demonstrate a non-targeted influence on other insect species includingbeneficialspe‐ cies. A smaller number of natural enemies can also influence the larger abundance and noxiousness of other species of insects, which before the usage of nonselective insecticides did not have any important economical meaning in agroecosystems.The second difficulty when unsuitable usage of insecticide occursis the phenomenon of resistance and the fact that,until now, more than 500 species of insects and mites were documented. Althoughthe price of insecticides is quite low when compared to natural enemies, the cost of insecticides increases due to the appearance of secondary pests, the appearance of resistance, govern‐ ment measures and the legal procedures obliged to healthy and integrated food and envi‐ ronment influence.

In this book, experts from different continents present the advantages and problems when applying insecticides and the possibilities for using other measures. The aim of this book is to educateresearchers, scientists, students and end users (farmers, hobby producers)about insecticides and their usage.

This book is dedicated to my family, my wife Milena, daughtersŠpela, Neža and Urška, and sons, Gašper, Miha and Peter, who assisted me in many ways. I extend to them my love and appreciation.

#### **Stanislav Trdan**

**Section 1**

**Non-Target Effects of Insecticides**

Head of the Chair of Phytomedicine, Agricultural Engineering, Crop Production, Pasture and Grassland Management Dept. of Agronomy, Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia **Non-Target Effects of Insecticides**

noxiousness of other species of insects, which before the usage of nonselective insecticides did not have any important economical meaning in agroecosystems.The second difficulty when unsuitable usage of insecticide occursis the phenomenon of resistance and the fact that,until now, more than 500 species of insects and mites were documented. Althoughthe price of insecticides is quite low when compared to natural enemies, the cost of insecticides increases due to the appearance of secondary pests, the appearance of resistance, govern‐ ment measures and the legal procedures obliged to healthy and integrated food and envi‐

In this book, experts from different continents present the advantages and problems when applying insecticides and the possibilities for using other measures. The aim of this book is to educateresearchers, scientists, students and end users (farmers, hobby producers)about

This book is dedicated to my family, my wife Milena, daughtersŠpela, Neža and Urška, and sons, Gašper, Miha and Peter, who assisted me in many ways. I extend to them my love and

**Stanislav Trdan**

Head of the Chair of Phytomedicine, Agricultural Engineering, Crop Production,

Pasture and Grassland Management Dept. of Agronomy, Biotechnical Faculty,

University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

ronment influence.

X Preface

appreciation.

insecticides and their usage.

**Chapter 1**

**Side Effects of Insecticides on**

Christa Volkmar

**1. Introduction**

Management.

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/54199

**Natural Enemies and Possibility of**

Nabil El-Wakeil, Nawal Gaafar, Ahmed Sallam and

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

**Their Integration in Plant Protection Strategies**

Recently, plant protection strategy has recommended, minimizing the use of chemical pesticides. Therefore, studying the side effect of insecticides on the natural enemies is highly required to exclude the detrimental effects on the natural enemies. Every crop is infested by various pests; some but not all of them may be controlled by biological means using pathogens, predators, parasitoids and spiders. But to achieve a satisfactory control of complexes of pests, selective pesticides are also indispensable. In fact, they are a prerequisite of Integrated Pest

The integration of chemical and biological control is often critical to the success of an integrated pest management (IPM) program for arthropod pests (Smilanick et al. 1996; El-Wakeil & Vidal 2005; El-Wakeil et al. 2006; Volkmar et al. 2008). In contrast with nonsystemic insecticides, many systemic insecticides and their metabolites are claimed to be fairly safe for beneficial in‐ sects because direct exposure to these chemicals occurs when insects feed on plant tissue. How‐ ever, systemic insecticides can potentially contaminate floral and extrafloral nectar when systemically distributed throughout the plant (Lord et al. 1968) and cause high mortality to nec‐ tarfeeding parasitoids for as long as some weeks after insecticide application (Stapel et al. 2000). Most biological control agents, including predators, parasitoids and spiders, at work in the agricultural and urban environments are naturally occurring ones, which provide excellent regulation of many pests with little or no assistance from humans. The existence of naturally occurring biological control agents is one reason that many plant-feeding insects do not ordinarily become economic pests. The importance of such agents often becomes quite

> © 2013 El-Wakeil et al.; licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2013 El-Wakeil et al.; licensee InTech. This is a paper distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
