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Efficacy of an adhesive nanopesticide on insect pests of rice in field trials

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aspen.2020.08.013Get rights and content

Highlights

  • An adhesive nanopesticide to control insect pests of rice was tested in the field.

  • CNAP-HMS-PDAAM had long-term efficacy against C. medinalis and C. suppressalis.

  • The nanocarriers possessed good biocompatibility and biosafety.

Abstract

Nanopesticides with antiwashing capacity on leaves are the most promising new approaches for sustainable pest management and have been fully evaluated in the laboratory. However, few studies have tested these nanopesticides on pests, and their efficacy under field conditions has not been investigated. In this study, an adhesive hollow mesoporous silica hybrid with well-defined spherical shape and good monodispersity was used as a nanocarrier of cyantraniliprole (CNAP) to fabricate an adhesive nanopesticide (CNAP-HMS-PDAAM). The control efficacy of CNAP-HMS-PDAAM was tested under field conditions. The results indicated that the efficacy of four doses of CNAP-HMS-PDAAM (30.0–69.0 g a.i./ha) against Cnaphalocrocis medinalis (Guénee) 3, 7, and 14 days after spraying did not significantly differ from that of Benevia (34.5 g a.i./ha). Twenty-eight days after spraying, the efficacy of all four doses of CNAP-HMS-PDAAM was significantly better than that of Benevia. Additionally, the efficacy of CNAP-HMS-PDAAM at doses of 34.5, 39.0 and 69.0 g a.i./ha against Chilo suppressalis (Walker) were significantly higher than that of Benevia (34.5 g a.i./ha). Thus, CNAP-HMS-PDAAM showed long-term control efficacies against C. medinalis (Guénee) and C. suppressalis (Walker), mainly due to its strong adhesive property on rice leaves and its sustained release properties. In addition, the nanocarriers showed good biocompatibility and had no obvious influence on the growth of rice.

Introduction

Rice (Oryza sativa) is the leading cereal crop grown worldwide because of its great importance to global food security (Khuhro et al., 2017, Wing et al., 2018). Cnaphalocrocis medinalis (Guénee) and Chilo suppressalis (Walker) are two important insect pests of rice; their larval leaf folding and stem boring behaviours greatly reduce the photosynthetic ability and vigor of rice plants, resulting in enormous reductions in rice yield (Padmavathi et al., 2013, Sun et al., 2018). To control these pests, many effective insecticides are applied annually in paddy fields worldwide, and the long-term use of which can lead to insect resistance and groundwater pollution (Chagnon et al., 2015, Mao et al., 2019). Therefore, there is a need to develop novel technologies to reduce pesticide use and protect rice from pests via sustainable means.

In recent years, research into nanotechnology applications in pesticide delivery has received much attention (White and Gardea-Torresdey, 2018, Lombi et al., 2019, Kah et al., 2019). By utilizing the benefits of nanomaterials, nanopesticides achieve smart release, improve the stability of active ingredients (AIs) in the environment, and prolong the effect duration (Nuruzzaman et al., 2016, Zhao et al., 2018, Lowry et al., 2019, Gao et al., 2020). Among them, nanopesticides with strong adhesion force on leaves have been widely studied. For example, Xiang et al. modified natural nanoclay with a high-energy electron beam to fabricate an effective matrix with nanonetworks, which possessed high antiwashing capacity and low chlorpyrifos amount loss on the peanut leaf surface (Xiang et al., 2014). Sharma et al. prepared anti-drift nanostickers made of graphene oxide for chlorpyrifos delivery, which effectively controlled the drift loss of chlorpyrifos on the cauliflower leaf via the piercing effect and the 2-D structure of graphene oxide (Sharma et al., 2017). In another case, Cui et al. reported on catechol group-modified avermectin nanoparticles, which showed good adhesion properties and long retention time on cucumber and broccoli foliage surfaces (Liang et al., 2018).

Taken together, these results indicate that nanopesticides with antiwashing capacity on leaves are promising new approaches for sustainable pest management. However, although adhesive nanopesticides have been fully evaluated in the laboratory, few studies have tested them on pests, and their efficacy under field conditions has not been investigated. Currently, this is a crucial knowledge gap for an evaluation of the benefits that nanopesticides present, relative to those of traditional pesticide formulations (Kah et al., 2018). Herein, an adhesive nanopesticide (CNAP-HMS-PDAAM) was prepared using hollow mesoporous silica and poly(diacetone acrylamide) nanocomposites as carriers of cyantraniliprole. The morphologies and adhesion mechanism of nanocomposites were subsequently investigated, and the control efficacies of CNAP-HMS-PDAAM against C. medinalis and C. suppressalis were tested under field conditions. Furthermore, the biosafety of the nanocomposites on rice and pests was evaluated.

Section snippets

Materials

Styrene (St, 99%), 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES, 98%), 2-bromoisobutyryl bromide (BIBB, 99%), copper(I) bromide (Cu(I)Br, 98%), N,N,N′,N″,N″-pentamethyldiethylenetriamine (PMDETA, 98%), and diacetone acrylamide (DAAM, 98%) were purchased from Tianjin Heowns Biochemical Co., Ltd. Hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB, 98%) and 2,2′-azobis(2-methylpropionamidine) dihydrochloride (V-50, 97%) were purchased from Aladdin Reagent Co., Ltd. Polyvinylpyrrolidone (K-30, 99.5%), tetraethyl

Results

Analysis using a scanning electron microscope (Fig. 1a) showed spherical HMS particles with a rough surface and good mono-dispersion. HMS-PDAAM particles (Fig. 1b) retained well-defined spherical shapes and good mono-dispersity. A hollow structure was observed in the broken HMS-PDAAM particles (inset of Fig. 1b). The control efficacy of CNAP-HMS-PDAAM against C. medinalis under field conditions are shown in Fig. 2. The efficacy of four doses of CNAP-HMS-PDAAM (30.0–69.0 g a.i./ha) against C.

Discussion

The synthesis of HMS used hard templating, in which polystyrene was used as a template and TEOS was used as the source of the silica shells. HMS was subsequently reacted with 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane and 2-bromoisobutyryl bromide to obtain a polymerization initiator. The PDAAM polymer was coated on the surface of HMS via atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). The SEM image showed that the HMS-PDAAM particles retained well-defined spherical shapes and good mono-dispersity but possessed

Notes

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2016YFD0200500), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31601654), and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2662019PY052 and 2662019PY077).

References (21)

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