| Summary: |
The widespread use of pesticide in agriculture of industrialised nations has been resulted in several serious problems to Humanity, mainly the contamination of natural resources. Some problems in ambient could be minimised in part if natural pesticides were found and used. Natural products are an attractive source of potential leads to new agrochemicals, not only for the diversity and novelty of chemical structures produced by living organisms, but also for the potential specific of biological action .
The vine is one of the more economically important crop in Portugal and where are consumed large quantities of pesticides. This study is based on traditional varieties used in the production of Vinhos Verde where different behaviour of the L. boltrana females have been detected, and two different varieties used in the Production of Madeira Wine.
The fertilised females have a decisive role in pest distribution. This different behaviour could be justified by the different composition of volatile and non-volatile substances from grape as well as by the different crop management to the several varieties. The knowledge of the identity of these substances could be of extreme importance in search for new pesticides.
This project pretend to contribute to the knowledge of presence of potentially insecticide substances, having in mind the main objectives: to evaluate behaviour of females L. botrana in relation at different varieties; to characterise the volatile and non-volatile substances from the studied varieties implied in behaviour of L. botrana and to evaluate its attractive and/or repellent activity in L. botrana; to quantify the phytossanitary residual products used in vineyards and to study its possible interference in behaviour of L. botrana.
The volatiles will be characterised by GC/MS. Some extraction and purification methods (HPLC) and spectroscopic methods (NMR, IR MS, UV) will be involved in characterisation of non-volatile substances. |