Biopesticides are pesticides which use insect pathogens as the active ingredient. Although they have been known for hundreds of years, only in the last twenty years have commercial products become available. Despite their favourable properties, they have remained a minority interest, and sales account for only about 2% of the world-wide market in agrichemicals. Click here to continue a discussion on why this is so.
The active ingredients of biopesticides can be bacteria, fungi, viruses, protozoa or nematodes.
The following pages give practical notes on working with insect pathogens; these should also be useful as lecture or class notes.
BacteriaFungi
Viruses
Protozoa
Nematodes
Collection
Preliminary identification
Preliminary isolation
Further identification
Culture
Storage
Instructions for sending specimens for identification
Go to the Links page to see some of the commercial suppliers of biopesticides, and some useful resource pages.
