What Are Insect Pheromones? A Comprehensive Guide to the Relevant Knowledge

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       At present, the basic means of pest control in agricultural production still mainly relies on chemical pesticides, but the long-term unrestrained use of pesticides has brought many side effects. First, the development of pest resistance leads to continuously increasing dosage and concentration of pesticides, rising costs year by year, and increasingly difficult control. Second, it disrupts the ecological balance: while controlling pests, a large number of natural enemies are killed, causing secondary pests to run rampant. Third, it pollutes the environment: large amounts of pesticide residues remain in crops, soil, rivers and lakes, and are then concentrated in the human body through the food chain, causing harm to humans once again. Therefore, research institutions both domestically and abroad are currently working hard to explore and study new approaches and new technologies for pest control. These studies include: the development of new, highly efficient, low-toxicity, low-residue chemical insecticides; the use of natural enemy insects and microbial pesticides; the application of insect sterilization technology and insect hormones; among these, research on using insect hormones, especially insect sex pheromones, for pest control is increasingly attracting people's attention and emphasis.

       Pheromones are the collective term for compounds that play a role in chemical communication between organisms, and are the chemical molecular language by which insects communicate. They include: kairomones, allomones, synomones, aggregation pheromones, trail pheromones, alarm pheromones, dispersal pheromones, and sex pheromones. In nature, after female adult pests reach sexual maturity, they release a compound called a sex pheromone. Once released into the air, it diffuses with the airflow, stimulates the chemosensory organs in the antennae of males, triggers sexual impulses in male individuals and lures males to fly in a directed manner toward the release source, and to mate with the releasing female adults in order to reproduce. Therefore, insect sex attractant products are bionic high-tech products that release artificially synthesized sex pheromones through a lure core.