Introduction
The search for pest control products started centuries ago. During the 20th century and the first quarter of the 21st century, the classes of compounds available and the number of effective compounds rapidly increased. Initially, the industry evolved in part due to a demand created by global upheaval of two world wars and a drastic increase in commercial synthesis and screening for active compounds by both governments and private industry.
There has also always been an ever-increasing demand for consistent improvement in agricultural production efficiency. As technology advanced, use experience consistently identified areas in which the existing technology need improvement. Needed improvements always include new modes of action to deal with or manage resistance to the current generation of products. With each advancement in this technology, the search intensifies for the next generation of more effective, yet safer alternatives to the latest available products. The development of organochloride compounds or chlorinated hydrocarbons in the 1940s, such as DDT, chlordane, aldrin, dieldrin and others, was a significant improvement of the spectrum of control and in the acute toxicity to mammals compared to existing inorganic compounds such as lead arsenate, copper sulphate and ferrous sulphate. Those new pesticides controlled a wide spectrum of agricultural and public health pests.
1940s-1970s
As the chlorinated hydrocarbons were dominating the pesticide market in the 1940s through the 1970s, other classes of compounds, organophosphates (OPs) and carbamates, were developed and adopted due to increasing awareness of chronic effects of chlorinated hydrocarbons to birds and other non-target organisms. Organophosphates were first synthesized prior to DDT while carbamate fungicides were developed in the 1930s and the first widely used carbamate insecticide, carbaryl (Sevin) was developed in the 1950s. Through the 1980s, control of pests in agronomic crops was largely by use of organophosphate or carbamate chemistry. Carbamates were rapidly accepted on food crops due to low mammalian toxicity and relatively short persistency in the environment compared to chlorinated hydrocarbons.
In the 1970s, we also saw the beginning of the development of microbial insecticides on a large scale. These new insecticides did not replace conventional chemistry, but they were the beginning of understanding that there were natural products, such as Bt endotoxins that were potent enough to suggest the possibilities of genetically modified (GMO) crops.
1980s-1990s
By the 1980s, many pests had developed resistance to organophosphate and carbamate insecticides. Synthetic pyrethroids replaced older organophosphate chemistry for insect control. Synthetic pyrethroids replaced OPs and carbamates due primarily to development of OP and carbamate-resistant pest populations. Other contributing factors to the success of synthetic pyrethroids were lower mammalian toxicity, much lower use rates and somewhat greater persistence of the synthetic pyrethroids compared to most OPs and carbamates.
During the 1980s and 1990s, a new class of pesticides, the neonicotinoids, was identified. The neonicotinoids were highly toxic to insects and considered minimally toxic to mammals. They possessed good residuals for soil applications, and many were absorbed and systemically translocated within plants, making them ideal for use as seed treatments. Seed treatment usually results in management of a pest with 20% or less of the broadcast dose required. The neonicotinoid, Imidacloprid, first registered by EPA for use in the United States in 1994, became one of the most widely used insecticides in the world.
In the 1990s, the first GMO crops with plant incorporated protectants (PIPs) were introduced. The use of pest resistant crops became predominant on major agronomic crops such as cotton, corn, and soybeans. Development of new chemical control products as well as biological insecticides continued. GMO traits are usually effective on a limited spectrum of pest organisms, so the implementation of multiple trait crop varieties became the focus of plant breeders for seed companies. The highly effective control achieved with GMO crops was limited to major pests on each crop. This often led to a shift in priorities for chemical synthesis and screening programs to find better solutions for once secondary pests that were previously controlled by the chemicals being used for control of the major pests now controlled by GMO traits. As a result, the environment benefited from massive savings in chemical applications.
The 21st Century: 2000 Through 2025
In the first quarter of the 21st century, the development and adoption of insect resistant GMO crops continued and accelerated. GMO traits in major agronomic crops have been eliminated or drastically reduced in-season applications for some of the most troublesome pests on these crops. These plant-incorporated pesticides (PIPs) have made the implementation of integrated pest management (IPM) more practical on these crops. Crop consultants can utilize beneficial organisms to reduce, eliminate, or improve the effectiveness of pesticide applications for secondary pests not yet controlled by available GMO traits. This improved potential of IPM demands consultants with expertise far more than those of an insect scout that needed only to determine when to start spraying and follow up to see if respray schedules needed to be altered. In many situations, once you started spraying, you were locked into a schedule that lasted until the crop was no longer susceptible to damage.
The quest for new GMO traits continues, and there are many future traits in development for control of additional pest groups and to improve crop quality and environmental stress tolerance. Tremendous advances have been made in methodology for inserting genetic material from one organism into another and even manipulating the existing genetic material in an organism to result in beneficial changes in the plant without introducing foreign genetic material. These methods are speeding up the development of new crops with improved genetics. The future will likely reveal that we are only at the very beginning of developing the possibilities of this technology.
Reach out to AgriThority® for your business, market and product development needs, as well as regulatory and sustainability counsel. Our international footprint, combined with our deep understanding of the market and producer dynamics, helps you to leap hurdles and overcome barriers to set up your products for success.
