The application of botanical pesticides is a good choice in organic agriculture. However, most botanical pesticides have limitations of slow action and short persistence for pest and disease management, which constrain their further application. With the objective of exploring a green pesticide for controlling strawberry pests and diseases simultaneously, a star polymer (SPc) with a low production cost was synthesized as a pesticide nanocarrier through simple reactions. The SPc complexed with osthole quickly through electrostatic interaction and hydrophobic association, which decreased the particle size of osthole down to the nanoscale (17.66 nm). With the help of SPc, more nano-sized osthole was delivered into cytoplasm through endocytosis, leading to the enhanced cytotoxicity against insect cells. As a green botanical pesticide, the control efficacy of the osthole/SPc complex was improved against main strawberry pests (green peach aphid and two-spotted spider mite) and disease (powdery mildew), which fulfilled the need of both pest and disease management in sustainable production of strawberry. Meanwhile, the introduction of SPc not only improved plant-uptake but also decreased the residue of osthole due to the higher degradation rate. Furthermore, the application of the osthole/SPc complex exhibited no influence on the strawberry fruit quality and nontarget predators. To our knowledge, it is the first success to control plant pests and diseases simultaneously for sustainable agriculture by only one pesticidal formulation based on nanoparticle-delivered botanical pesticides.

There is a growing demand for reducing pesticide application to minimize its potential threats to food/environmental safety. Herein, a star polymer (SPc) with low production cost was synthesized using two...

The unscientific application of synthetic pesticides has brought various negative effects on the environment, hindering the sustainable development of agriculture. Nanoparticles can be applied as carriers to improve pesticide delivery, showing great potential in the development of pesticide formulation in recent years. Herein, a star polymer (SPc) was constructed as an efficient pesticide nanocarrier/adjuvant that could spontaneously assemble with thiocyclam or monosultap into a complex, through hydrophobic association and hydrogen bonding, respectively, with the pesticide-loading contents of 42.54% and 19.3%. This complexation reduced the particle sizes of thiocyclam from 543.54 to 52.74 nm for pure thiocyclam, and 3 814.16 to 1 185.89 nm for commercial preparation (cp) of thiocyclam. Interestingly, the introduction of SPc decreased the contact angles of both pure and cp thiocyclam on plant leaves, and increased the plant uptake of cp thiocyclam to 2.4-1.9 times of that without SPc. Meanwhile, the SPc could promote the bioactivity of pure/cp thiocyclam against green peach aphids through leaf dipping method and root application. For leaf dipping method, the 50% lethal concentration decreased from 0.532 to 0.221 g/L after the complexation of pure thiocyclam with SPc, and that decreased from 0.390 to 0.251 g/L for cp thiocyclam. SPc seems a promising adjuvant for nanometerization of both pure and cp insecticides, which is beneficial for improving the delivery efficiency and utilization rate of pesticides.

There is a great demand for improving the effective utilization of pesticides and reducing their application for sustainable agriculture, and polymeric nanoparticles have provided strong technical support for the efficient delivery of pesticides. To this context, we tried to construct a relatively safe imidaclothiz nano-delivery system for enhanced plant uptake, reduced pesticide residue and improved bioactivity toward green peach aphids. The imidaclothiz could be assembled with the hydrophobic core of SPc through hydrophobic association, which led to the self-assembly of nanoscale imidaclothiz/SPc complex consisting of nearly spherical particles. The SPc decreased the contact angle of imidaclothiz drops and remarkably increased the plant uptake. Furthermore, the bioactivity and control efficacy of imidaclothiz were significantly improved with the help of SPc in both laboratory and field. Excitingly, the residue of imidaclothiz decreased with the help of SPc 7 d after the treatment due to the faster degradation of nanoscale imidaclothiz/SPc complex, which exhibited no negative effects on agronomic traits of tobacco plants. The current study successfully constructed a nano-delivery system for imidaclothiz, which can not only increase the effective utilization of pesticides, but also decrease the pesticide residue.

The unscientific application of synthesized/botanical pesticides has not only brought the resistance of plant pathogens and pests, but also led to serious environmental pollution. In recent years, various nano-delivery systems have been used for the development of environmental-friendly pesticides with improved efficacy. Herein, the current study constructed an efficient avermectin B1a (AVM) nano-delivery system based on a star polyamine (SPc) and focused on the characterization and bioactivity of SPc-loaded AVM at various mass ratios. The hydroxyl groups of AVM could assemble with carbonyl groups of SPc through hydrogen bond and van der Waals forces, and the self-assembly of AVM and SPc formed nearly spherical particles of AVM/SPc complex with nanoscale size. The contact angle of SPc-loaded AVM decreased with the increasing mass ratio of SPc, revealing the easier distribution and spreading of the AVM/SPc complex. Furthermore, the stomach and contact toxicity of AVM/SPc complex also increased along with the increasing SPc mass ratio, which could be attributed to the enhanced systemic transportation in plants, enlarged contact area to insect pests and stronger permeability across the insect cuticle. The current study provides an efficient nano-delivery system for increasing stomach and contact toxicity of pesticides with wide applications in the agricultural field.