Abstract
Plant-derived pesticides (botanical) deliver a potential alternative to highly hazardous synthetic pesticides for insect pest control. They can be derived by leaves, floral system, fruits or seeds, wood, and/or roots. The active chemical compounds are extracted via drying, grinding, and mixing the plant parts in suitable solvents. Some of the well-known botanical pesticides are pyrethrin, rotenone, sabadilla, nicotine, ryanodine, etc. Little attention has been paid to explore the use of botanicals against termites. Most of the studies are limited to the extraction of plant chemicals with water and methanol and to the application against termites to assess their killing potential. The botanical bioassays against termites seem incomplete because either some aerial parts like leaves, fruits, seeds, and stems or roots have been utilized alone. Similarly, oil extraction and plant crude extracts were not assessed for the same plants. Isolation and synthesis of active compound are also very rare. In this chapter, we review the properties of various plant parts and their potential role in termite management, highlighting the gaps concerning the available informations.