Iranian Researchers Produce Agricultural Pesticides from Soil-Dwelling Bacterium

TEHRAN (ANA)- Biotechnology researchers in Iran have produced biopesticide from a soil-dwelling bacterium that can destroy plant pests by producing poison while the poison does not pose any threat to humans and animals' health.

News ID : 3352

“An increase in population and mechanization of agriculture has led to the excessive use of chemical pesticides in order to increase productivity and protect crops, while using chemical pesticides comes with contamination of underground water, soil pollution, environmental degradation and threat to society's health,” Fatemeh Saberi, project executive director said in an interview with Iranian media.

She said that despite the effectiveness of chemical insecticides, using them causes environmental problems such as increased resistance, non-targeted effects, carcinogenic toxicity in mammals and some of them remain in the food chain, adding, "These problems and efforts to solve them have highlighted the need for biological control agents."

Saberi pointed to the environmental and health-oriented advantages of the new product whose price is also competetive, adding, “These characteristics are very important factors in 'Sustainable & Integrated Pest Management' as they play an important role for pest control, so that a significant share of the pesticide market will shift towards biological pesticides in the future."

As regards the achievements produced in the field of biological control, Saberi who is educated in the field of chemical engineering and biotechnology said, "During the past few years, we have been focusing on the native species of Bacillus thuringiensis (or Bt) in the country's biological control research center located in the Iranian Research Institute of Plant Protection (IRIPP). We further conducted numerous experiments in both laboratory level and field application (on larvae and real pests) we managed to achieve very high efficiency in killing pests. The results of our research received the necessary approvals from this national center."

She considered 'Bacillus thuringiensis' to be a soil-dwelling and gram-positive bacterium that in its death phase it secretes a toxin that can be isolated and is highly toxic to the digestive system of larvae and some other insects.

Saying that the toxicity of Bacillus thuringiensis is fully harmless for plants, vertebrates and humans, Saberi added, "Therefore, the products of Bacillus thuringiensis bacteria have been proposed as biological pesticides today because it is the most commonly used biological pesticide worldwide, in such a way that it has obtained more than 60% the overall share of of the world's microbial pesticide market."

The director of the project stated that the mentioned biological pesticide has a major effect on target insects and has become much more popular compared to chemical pesticides in today's world.

"Now its spores and crystalized form can be used as a solution that can be solved in water ...," she added.

She pointed out that the national invention "Spore and crystal separation process from Bacillus thuringiensis fermentation solution with the help of a porous membrane" as one of their research achievements in the project which has been registered in the country in their names", adding that ISI articles have been published in prestigious journals out of the research.

With regards to how the Bt is used to control agricultural insect pests and their larvae type, she said that the bacterium secretes a crystalline protein called delta-endotoxin, which can be separated and is highly toxic to the digestive system of some insect larvae, causing the destruction of insect larvae and It becomes a pest.

According to the executive director of the research, the bilogicial pesticide is currently in the final commercialization phase.

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