Photo: Maria Luisa Tomasi Pereira / Epacri
Insect attacks can compromise up to 10% of rice stored in pits
Attacks by insects or weevils, as they are popularly known, can compromise up to 10% of rice stored in pits. Aware of this, researchers from the Epagri Experimental Station in Itajai (EEI) and Furb presented a possible resolution in work presented at the 29th meeting of the Brazilian Chemical Society in the Southern Region. Royal Society of Chemistry.
Work, “Oil off Rice As an attraction to the management of storage insect pests”, written by Andre Martínez Rebelo and Marcelo Mendes Haro and Lisandra Maria Zimmerman from Ebagiri. Furb. The proposal is to use rice oil as bait in traps to catch insects.
Using a harmless product to make traps, researchers highlight the possibility of controlling the moths. The study assumes that control is carried out with products that do not predict their continuous or irrational use, favoring the selection of natural enemies, poison agents, contaminating water sources and food and favoring the selection of resistant insects.
Essential compounds in an insect’s diet
Because rice oil does not contaminate, the solution the researchers found does not have these risks. The award-winning work hypothesizes that the attractive effect may be linked to the presence of metabolites in rice oil, which contain compounds that are energy-rich and essential for the insect’s diet.
The bioassays were carried out in the X arena, which consisted of five small chambers, a core and a side frame, which were interconnected by plastic tubes. The researchers released the insects into a central chamber. Each edge chamber was filled with rice, and filter paper moistened with an aqueous solution containing one part of rice oil was installed in two of them.
According to the work, rice oil significantly attracted insects in the bioassay after 48 hours. “The use of rice oil has an attractive potential for tested pests and can be used in traps to prevent pests from attacking stored grain. Compounds in this oil may be responsible for this attraction, either singly or in combination, causing the pest to deviate from its target, i.e. stored grain, reducing production loss”, That concludes the study.
According to Andre, rice oil traps are capable of combating weevil attacks on corn and other grains. him.
A Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a scientific society based in the United Kingdom. Its main objective is to promote the general advancement of chemical science, and for this purpose, it provides databases to the scientific community and conducts and supports scientific research by publishing journals and books in the field.
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