The present study aimed to evaluate the insecticidal activity of hydroalcoholic plant extracts on Aphis craccivora Koch nymphs in cowpea. The experiments were carried out under greenhouse conditions in a randomized block design with five repetitions. Hydrated ethanol was used as a solvent in the botanical extract preparation. Cowpea plants were infested with five female adult aphids, eleven days after planting. After 48 hours, the adults were removed from the plants, leaving the recently bred nymphs. The evaluation of the nymphs’ survival was carried out forty-eight 48 hours after the application of the plant extracts. The botanical extracts with more than 50% efficiency were: Allium tuberosum leaf, Caesalpinia ferrea leaf, Piper aduncum leaf, Carica papaya seed, Dieffenbachia picta leaf, Cucurbita moschata seed and the control treatment, Annona squamosa seed. The botanical extracts with less than 50% efficiency were: Allium sativum bulb, Anacardium occidentale leaf, Borreria verticillata leaf plus flower, Coffea arabica leaf and seed, Delonix regia leaf and flower, Euphorbia tirucalli leaf, Leucaena leucocephala leaf, Mimosa caesalpiniaefolia leaf, Nerium oleander leaf, Syzygium cumini leaf, endocarp and pericarp, Syzygium malaccense leaf, Zingiber officinale rizome and Ziziphus joazeiro leaf. The highest efficiency levels were obtained by D. picta and C. moschata, rendering these extracts suitable for field trials to further evaluate their efficieny against the cowpea black aphid.

Extratos botânicos de plantas brasileiras de caatinga têm um efeito inseticida potencial e acredita-se que extratos de Ziziphus joazeiro, Caesalpinia ferrea e Mimosa caesalpiniifolia exibam atividade inseticida contra Aphis craccivora (pulgão-preto). Este trabalho teve como objetivo avaliar diferentes extratos botânicos dessas plantas no controle de A. craccivora em plantas de feijão-caupi. O estudo foi realizado no Departamento de Fitotecnia da Universidade Federal do Ceará, campus Pici, em Fortaleza, Ceará. Os tratamentos foram: água destilada; um inseticida botânico de eficiência comprovada, da Annona squamosa, na concentração de 0,5%; e extratos hidroalcoólicos, por dois tempos de armazenamento e concentrações de 5 e 2,5%, de diferentes partes das espécies vegetais. O delineamento de cada experimento foi em blocos casualizados, com vinte e seis tratamentos e cinco repetições. Para ambas as concentrações (5% e 2,5%), o tratamento que apresentou maior eficiência foi o extrato de Annona squamosa. Nas condições do experimento, os extratos botânicos possuem uma substância ativa que controla o pulgão.

Postharvest diseases compromise banana quality and cause high economic losses in Brazil. Among them, the crown rot prevails and its causal agents belong to distinct fungal species such as Colletotrichum musae (Berk. & Curt.) von Arx, Fusarium spp., and Lasiodiplodia theobromae (Pat.) Griff. & Maubl. (Griffee and Burden 1976; Ploetz et al. 2003). Symptoms of crown rot were observed on banana fruits of cv. Williams in a commercial area in Assu, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil (04°54'0.06"S, 37°22'6.02"W) in 2017. The samples were collected, superficially disinfected with NaClO (2%), and incubated in a wet chamber at 25 °C, with a 12 h photoperiod, for approximately 3 days. After the appearance of disease symptoms and pathogen signs, mycelia were transferred from the lesions to obtain pure cultures on a potato dextrose agar (PDA) medium. Thus, a monosporic culture was obtained (isolate BAN82). The fungus produced pycnidia with conidia on potato carrot agar (PCA) culture medium containing pine needles, after four weeks of incubation at 28 °C. The conidia were hyaline when immature and brown with central transverse septum when mature. The presence of conidiogenous cells, paraphyses, and conidiophores also were observed. The conidia present ovoid format measuring 20-28 x 11-14 µm (n=50). The fungal colony produced abundant aerial mycelia of mouse grey coloration, progressing to dark mouse grey (Rayner 1970), on PDA for 15 days to 28 °C. The growth rate was 29.3 mm/day on PDA. The genomic DNA was extracted and amplified PCR with primers TEF1-688F/TEF1-1251R, ITS1/ITS4, and Bt2a/Bt2b and sequenced in both directions. The TEF1 and TUB2 sequences showed 100%, and the ITS showed 93.06% identity with the sequences of Lasiodiplodia brasiliensis (GenBank accession numbers: ON623895, TEF1, ON623896, TUB2, and ON599012, ITS. Multiple alignments of the combined dataset of the isolate and representative sequences obtained from GenBank were submitted phylogenetic analyses to bayesian inference (IB) with posterior probabilities of 10,000,000 generations. The morphological characteristics together with multigenic analysis of the three genomic regions made it possible to identify the BAN82 isolate as Lasiodiplodia brasiliensis, showing bootstrap support of posterior probabilities of 0,98 in the IB analysis. The pathogenicity was evaluated on 16 banana fruits from cv. Prata Catarina, at the point of harvest. For inoculation, the bananas were disinfected with water, soap, and, NaClO (2%). Posteriorly, the fruits were wounded on both ends, followed by the deposition of 5mm diameter mycelial plugs from the fungal culture, within 7 days of the growth. After the inoculation, the fruits were incubated in plastic boxes in a wet chamber at 25 °C, with 12 h photoperiod, for 3 days. To complete Koch’s postulates, the isolate was inoculated again into 16 other banana fruits from cv. Prata Catarina. The negative control fruits were not inoculated with the pathogen, only with PDA discs. The BAN82 isolate was pathogenic to the banana cv. Prata Catarina. In the Brazilian Northeast, L. brasiliensis was described in 2014 as being associated with papaya stem rot. Up to the moment, there are no reports of L. brasiliensis as the causal agent of crown rot on bananas from Brazil (Netto et al. 2014; Farr and Rossman 2022). Thus, our work is the first to report L. brasiliensis causing crown rot on banana fruits cv. Prata Catarina in Brazil.

<p>O aumento nas concentrações dos gases de efeito estufa (GEE) na atmosfera terrestre é apontado como o principal fator causador das mudanças climáticas. O setor agropecuário tem papel estratégico nas políticas de mitigação dos efeitos do aquecimento global, pois é um grande emissor de GEE. Para reduzir a emissão de GEE, o Brasil vem desenvolvendo o Programa Agricultura de Baixo Carbono (ABC) com o objetivo de financiar ações de mitigação de GEE no setor agropecuário.  Este trabalho se propõe a descrever a distribuição dos recursos desse programa entre os estados brasileiros, desde a sua implantação, e analisar os fatores que podem estar afetando essa distribuição. Os dados do Programa ABC do período 2010/2016 foram descritos utilizando os métodos e técnicas da estatística descritiva. Para explicar a variabilidade do valor dos contratos no período mencionado, um modelo de regressão múltipla, para dados empilhados, do tipo log-log foi estimado. Os resultados mostram que as regiões Centro-Oeste, Sul e Sudeste concentraram o número e valor dos contratos em uma proporção consideravelmente maior do que as observadas nas regiões Norte e Nordeste. As variáveis que afetaram significativamente o valor dos contratos na safra 2014/16 foram a área colhida, o valor, o número de contratos realizados nesse período e a localização regional do Estado. <strong></strong></p><p><strong>Palavras-chave: </strong>conservação; agricultura; mudanças climáticas.</p>

Banana is a fruit of great importance in Brazil and crown rot cause considerable damage and losses (Ploetz et al. 2003). The disease is associated with fungal complexes, especially the Lasiodiplodia theobromae sensu lato (Kamel et al. 2016; Renganathan et al. 2020; Waliullah et al. 2022). Three asymptomatic bunches of banana cv. 'Prata Catarina' were collected in Russas, Brazil (04°58'11.6"S, 38°01'44.5"W), in 2017. The samples were disinfected (NaClO, 200 ppm), and incubated in a moist chamber at 28 °C, with 12 h light/12 h dark for 3 days. With the appearance of the symptoms (32% of severity), the isolation was conducted in potato dextrose agar (PDA). A monosporic culture (BAN14) was obtained from a typical crown rot lesion, which was subjected to morphological characterization, showing abundant aerial mycelium of olivaceous grey color on the surface and greenish grey on the back (Rayner 1970) in PDA after 15 days at 28 °C. The growth rate was 28.2 mm. day-1. The fungus produced pycnidia and conidia on water agar medium containing pine needles, with 3-4 weeks at 28 °C, presenting conidia initially aseptate, subglobose to subcylindrical, becoming pigmented with 1-central transverse septum and longitudinal striations 23.5 (18.7) 26.0 x 12.7 (9.7) 14.8 µm (n=50). Paraphyses, hyaline, cylindrical, thin-walled, apparently coenocytic with rounded apex, with length and width dimensions of 34 (43.8) 53.2 x 2.1 (2.5) 3.2 µm (n=30). Conidiophore absent, conidiogenous cells hyaline, smooth and with thin walls. The genomic DNA was extracted and amplified by PCR with primers TEF1-688F/TEF1-1251R, ITS1/ITS4, and Bt2a/Bt2b, and sequenced in both directions (O'Donnell et al. 1998; O'Donnell et al. 2010) (GenBank accession ON975017 [TEF1], ON986403 [TUB2], and ON921398 [ITS]). BLASTn analysis of TEF1, TUB2 and ITS sequences in NCBI database showed 99 to 100% nucleotide identity to a representative isolate of Lasiodiplodia iraniensis (IRAN921). Phylogenetic analysis using maximum parsimony based on the combined TEF1, TUB2 and ITS sequences indicated that the BAN14 formed a supported clade (82% bootstrap value) to L. iraniensis. The pathogenicity was evaluated in 20 banana fruit cv. 'Prata Catarina', at the point of harvest. For inoculation, the bananas were washed with water and soap, and disinfected with NaClO (200 ppm). Posteriorly, two wounds were made on the extremities of the fruits, in which were deposited mycelial discs of 5 mm in diameter, with 7 days of the growth on PDA. After inoculation, the fruits were incubated in plastic boxes in a wet chamber at 25 °C, with 12 h light/12 h dark for 5 days. The control fruits were not inoculated with the pathogen, only with PDA discs. The experiments were repeat twice. The BAN14 isolate was pathogenic to the banana cv. 'Prata Catarina'. The BAN14 was grouped with the species L. iraniensis described by Abdollahzadeh et al. (2010) in Iran. This species is distributed in Asia, South and North America, Australia, and Africa. In Brazil it was reported in association to Anacardium occidentale, Annona muricata, A. squamosa, Annona ×cherimola-squamosa, Citrus sp., Eucalyptus sp., Jatropha curcas, Mangifera indica, Manihot esculenta, Nopalea cochenillifera, Vitis sp. and V. vinifera. Until the moment, there is not description of the relation between banana crown rot and L. iraniensis (Farr and Rossman 2022). Our work is the first report on the pathogenicity of this species on banana fruit cv. 'Prata Catarina' worldwide.