Content area
Full text
The study deals with problems of crop losses caused by pathogens, pests, and weeds and the global environmental problem of accumulation of protective chemicals in the biosphere. The author discusses potentials of biotechnology for plant protection and for decreasing the use of xenobiotics by replacing them with biofertilizers and biopesticides. Special attention is paid to the recent lines of research aimed at development and use of new-generation targeted and slow-release biotechnological preparations embedded in degradable matrix of microbial plastics - polyhydroxyalkanoates.
Keywords: crop protection, chemicals, biotechnology, biopesticides and biofertilizers, slow-release and targeted formulations, polyhydroxyalkanoates.
В работе обсуждаются проблемы, связанные с потерями в результате воздействия на κультурные растения возбудителей болезней, вредителей и сорняκов, а таκже с глобальной эκологичесκой проблемой аκκумуляции в биосфере химичесκих средств защиты. Рассмотрены перспеκтивы биотехнологии для защиты растений и соκращения масштабов применения κсенобиотиκов за счет применения биоудобрений и биопестицидов. Уделено особое внимание новейшим направлениям исследований, ориентированным на разработκу и применение адресных и долговременных биотехнологичесκих препаратов нового поκоления, депонированных в разрушаемую основу из миκробных биопластиκов полигидроκсиалκаноатов.
Kmючевые слова: защита κультурных растений, химичесκие препараты, биотехнология, биопестициды и биоудобрения, долговременные и адресные препараты, полигидроκсиалκаноаты.
Introduction
The effectiveness of agricultural technologies in food production is determined by various factors, including ecological, geographical, and economic ones; it also depends on renewable biological resources such as crops, domestic animals, and microorganisms. Considerable research effort in various sciences has focused on increasing the biological production in agriculture. Modern intensive farming is impossible without pesticides. The global losses of potential yields caused by pests reach 37 %: 13 % of them are due to insects, 12 % due to weeds, and 12 % due to diseases. The annual losses are assessed at U.S. $ 2000 billion (Oerke, 2006; Pimentel, 2009). However, pesticide build-up in the biosphere, via accumulation and concentration in food chains of biota in agroecosystems and natural ecosystems, poses global environmental threat (Hansen et al., 2004). Thus, only a small part of pesticides in the environment reach their goal; the remaining pesticides kill useful organisms, accumulate in biological objects, destroy the balance in natural ecosystems, and contaminate soil, water, and air. The scale of pesticide application is very large and keeps on growing; at the beginning of the 21st century, the pesticide market approximated U.S. $ 30 billion....