Pest Control and Biopesticides, Enteropathogenic Virus, Bacterial Pesticides, Biological Insecticides, Bacillus Thuringiensis, Pseudomonas

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	Pest Control and Biopesticides - Bacterial pesticides are also being developed (even though they are slow in action and are expensive) and a company in U.S.A. with the name Ecogen Inc. established in 1983, made some progress in this direction. Heliothis complex, which lives in close association with plant roots consists of two major crop pests, namely budworm and ballworm.
Biological insecticides against both these insects are being prepared by transfer of a gene from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), into either a naturally occurring soil bacterium, or into a strain of Pseudomonas. Bt insecticides arc already in the market for 30 years and in future these will be modified through techniques of genetic engineering and will be utilized against a variety of insects. Several companies in USA including Ecogen, Monsanto, Mycogen, Repligen and Zoecon are involved in development and marketing of biological pesticides. Among these, while Monsanto was using genetically engineered live soil bacteria, for coating seeds before planting, Mycogen kills recombinant bacteria and applies them to the leaves of crop plants.Both these approaches protect the toxin from degradation by microorganisms or ultraviolet light, once applied to crop plants.