{"id":4060,"date":"2015-12-09T04:48:49","date_gmt":"2015-12-09T04:48:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kurzweilai.net\/?p=267988"},"modified":"2015-12-09T17:00:14","modified_gmt":"2015-12-09T17:00:14","slug":"chemicals-that-make-plants-defend-themselves-could-replace-pesticides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/2015\/12\/09\/chemicals-that-make-plants-defend-themselves-could-replace-pesticides\/","title":{"rendered":"Chemicals that make plants defend themselves could replace pesticides"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Researchers used the relative induction of GUS activity as a screening tool for identifying new chemical elicitors that induce resistance in rice to the white-backed planthopper Sogatella furcifera (credit: Xingrui He et al.\/Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters)<\/p><\/div>\n

Chemical triggers that make plants defend themselves against insects could replace pesticides, causing less damage to the environment. New\u00a0research\u00a0published in an open-access paper<\/a> in\u00a0Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters<\/em>\u00a0identifies five chemicals that trigger rice plants to fend off a common pest — the white-backed planthopper,\u00a0Sogatella furcifera<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pesticides have a detrimental effect on ecosystems, ravaging food chains and damaging the environment. One of the problems with many pesticides is that they kill indiscriminately.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Sogatella furcifera (credit: BIO Photography Group\/CNC, Biodiversity Institute of Ontario)<\/p><\/div>\n

For rice plants, this means pesticides kill the natural enemies of one of their biggest pests, the white-backed planthopper\u00a0Sogatella furcifera<\/em>. This pest attacks rice, leading to yellowing or \u201chopper burn,\u201d which causes the plants to wilt and can damage the grains. It also transmits a virus disease called, southern rice black-streaked dwarf virus, which stunts the plants\u2019 growth and stops them from \u201cheading,\u201d which is when pollination occurs.<\/p>\n

Left untreated, many of the insects\u2019 eggs would be eaten, but when pesticides are used, these hatch, leading to even more insects on the plants. What\u2019s more, in some areas as many as a third of the planthoppers are\u00a0resistant to pesticides.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe extensive application of chemical insecticides not only causes severe environmental and farm produce pollution but also damages the ecosystem,\u201d explained Dr. Jun Wu<\/a>, one of the authors of the study and professor at Zhejiang University \u2028in China. \u201cTherefore, developing safe and effective methods to control insect pests is highly desired; this is why we decided to investigate these chemicals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enhancing plants’ natural defense mechanisms<\/strong><\/p>\n

Plants have natural self-defense mechanisms that kick in when they are infested with pests like the planthopper. This defense mechanism can be switched on using chemicals that do not harm the environment and are not toxic to the insects or their natural enemies.<\/p>\n

In the new study, researchers from Zhejiang University \u2028in China developed a new way of identifying these chemicals. Using a specially designed screening system, they determined to what extent different chemicals switched on the plants\u2019 defense mechanism. The team designed and synthesized 29 phenoxyalkanoic acid derivatives. Of these, they identified five that could be effective at triggering the rice plants to defend themselves.<\/p>\n

The researchers used bioassays to show that these chemicals could trigger the plant defense mechanism and repel the white-backed planthopper, which suggests potential use in insect pest management.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe demonstrate for the first time that some phenoxyalkanoic acid derivatives have the potential to become such plant protection agents against the rice white-backed planthopper,\u201d said Dr. Yonggen Lou<\/a>, one of the authors of the study and professor at Zhejiang University \u2028in China. \u201cThis new approach to pest management could help protect the ecosystem while defending important crops against attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next step for the research will be to explore how effective the chemicals are at boosting the plants\u2019 defenses and controlling planthoppers in the field.<\/p>\n

\n

Abstract of\u00a0Finding new elicitors that induce resistance in rice to the white-backed planthopper <\/em>Sogatella furcifera<\/strong><\/p>\n

Herein we report a new way to identify chemical elicitors that induce resistance in rice to herbivores. Using this method, by quantifying the induction of chemicals for GUS activity in a specific screening system that we established previously, 5 candidate elicitors were selected from the 29 designed and synthesized phenoxyalkanoic acid derivatives. Bioassays confirmed that these candidate elicitors could induce plant defense and then repel feeding of white-backed planthopper\u00a0Sogatella furcifera<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chemical triggers that make plants defend themselves against insects could replace pesticides, causing less damage to the environment. New research published in an open-access paper in Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters identifies five chemicals that trigger rice plants to fend off a common pest — the white-backed planthopper, Sogatella furcifera. Pesticides have a detrimental effect on ecosystems, ravaging food chains […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,52,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech","category-environmentclimate","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4060"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4060"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4080,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4060\/revisions\/4080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}