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Neem Oil
Neem oil, also known as margosa oil, is a vegetable oil pressed from the fruits and seeds of the neem (''Azadirachta indica''), a tree which is indigenous to the Indian subcontinent and has been introduced to many other areas in the tropics. It is the most important of the commercially available products of neem, and is a potent pesticide used in organic farming. Composition Azadirachtin is the most well known and studied triterpenoid in neem oil. nimbin (chemical), Nimbin is another triterpenoid which has been credited with some of neem oil's properties as an antiseptic, antifungal, antipyretic and antihistamine. Uses Ayurveda Neem oil has a history of use in Ayurvedic traditional medicine, folk medicine. Pesticide Formulations that include neem oil have found wide usage as a biopesticide for horticulturists and for organic farming, as it repels a wide variety of insect pests including mealy bugs, beet armyworms, aphids, cabbage worms, thrips, whiteflies, mites, fungu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Expeller (4)
Expeller pressing (also called oil pressing) is a mechanical method for extracting oil from raw materials. The raw materials are squeezed under high pressure in a single step. When used for the extraction of food oils, typical raw materials are nut (fruit), nuts, seeds and algae, which are supplied to the press in a continuous feed. As the raw material is pressed, friction causes it to heat. In the case of harder nuts, which require higher pressure, the material temperature can exceed 120 °F (49 °C). "Expeller" is a trademarked term of Anderson International Corporation since 1900, although it has become genericized, is often confused with screw press equipment in general, and does not indicate whether oil extraction is done hot or cold. Description An expeller press is a screw-type machine that mainly presses oil seeds through a caged barrel-like cavity. Some other materials processed with an expeller press include meat by-products, synthetic rubber and animal feeds ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beet Armyworm
The beet armyworm or small mottled willow moth (''Spodoptera exigua'') is one of the best-known agricultural pest insects. It is also known as the asparagus fern caterpillar. It is native to Asia, but has been introduced worldwide and is now found almost anywhere its many host crops are grown. The voracious larvae are the main culprits. In the British Isles, where it is an introduced species and not known to breed, the adult moth is known as the small mottled willow moth. Discovery Thought to have originated in south-east Asian countries, it was first discovered in North America about 1876, when it was found in Oregon, and it reached Florida in 1924. Description The adult is a drab brown or grey moth with a wingspan of . Forewing is greyish ochreous in color, washed with dull yellow and sprinkled with black scales. Inner and outer lines are double, indistinct, filled in with pale yellowish color. A dark waved median shade visible before lower half of outer line. Cell is dark b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Honey Bee
The western honey bee or European honey bee (''Apis mellifera'') is the most common of the 7–12 species of honey bees worldwide. The genus name ''Apis'' is Latin for 'bee', and ''mellifera'' is the Latin for 'honey-bearing' or 'honey-carrying', referring to the species' production of honey. Like all honey bee species, the western honey bee is Eusociality, eusocial, creating Beehive, colonies with a single fertile female (or "Queen bee, queen"), many normally non-reproductive females or "workers", and a small proportion of fertile males or "Drone (bee), drones". Individual colonies can house tens of thousands of bees. Colony activities are organized by Bee learning and communication, complex communication between individuals, through both pheromones and the waggle dance. The western honey bee was one of the first Domestication, domesticated insects, and it is the primary species maintained by beekeepers to this day for both its honey production and pollination activities. With h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese Beetle
The Japanese beetle (''Popillia japonica'') is a species of Scarabaeidae, scarab beetle. Due to the presence of Predation, natural predators, the Japanese beetle is not considered a pest in its native Japan, but in North America and some regions of Europe, it is a noted Pest (organism), pest to roughly 300 species of plants. Some of these plants include rose bushes, grapes, hops, canna (plant), canna, crape myrtles, birch trees, Tilia, linden trees, and others. The adult beetles damage plants by Skeletonization, skeletonizing the foliage (i.e., consuming only the material between a leaf's veins) as well as, at times, feeding on a plant's fruit. The subterranean larvae feed on the roots of grasses. Taxonomy English entomologist Edward Newman (entomologist), Edward Newman described the Japanese beetle in 1841. Description Adult ''P. japonica'' measure in length and in width, with iridescent copper-colored elytra and green thorax and head. A row of white tufts (spots) of hair ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nematodes
The nematodes ( or ; ; ), roundworms or eelworms constitute the phylum Nematoda. Species in the phylum inhabit a broad range of environments. Most species are free-living, feeding on microorganisms, but many are parasitic. Parasitic worms (helminths) are the cause of soil-transmitted helminthiases. They are classified along with arthropods, tardigrades and other moulting animals in the clade Ecdysozoa. Unlike the flatworms, nematodes have a tubular digestive system, with openings at both ends. Like tardigrades, they have a reduced number of Hox genes, but their sister phylum Nematomorpha has kept the ancestral protostome Hox genotype, which shows that the reduction has occurred within the nematode phylum. Nematode species can be difficult to distinguish from one another. Consequently, estimates of the number of nematode species are uncertain. A 2013 survey of animal biodiversity suggested there are over 25,000. Estimates of the total number of extant species are subject ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Locusts
Locusts (derived from the Latin ''locusta'', locust or lobster) are various species of short-horned grasshoppers in the family Acrididae that have a Swarm behaviour, swarming phase. These insects are usually solitary, but under certain circumstances they become more abundant and change their behaviour and habits, becoming sociality, gregarious. No taxonomic distinction is made between locust and grasshopper species; the basis for the definition is whether a species forms swarms under intermittently suitable conditions; this has evolved independently in multiple lineages, comprising at least 18 genera in 5 different subfamilies. Normally, these grasshoppers are innocuous, their numbers are low, and they do not pose a major economic threat to agriculture. However, under suitable conditions of drought followed by rapid vegetation growth, serotonin in their brains triggers dramatic changes: they start to breed abundantly, becoming gregarious and nomadic (loosely described as Inse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caterpillars
Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths). As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder Symphyta) are commonly called caterpillars as well. Both lepidopteran and symphytan larvae have eruciform body shapes. Caterpillars of most species eat plant material ( often leaves), but not all; some (about 1%) eat insects, and some are even cannibalistic. Some feed on other animal products. For example, clothes moths feed on wool, and horn moths feed on the hooves and horns of dead ungulates. Caterpillars are typically voracious feeders and many of them are among the most serious of agricultural pests. In fact, many moth species are best known in their caterpillar stages because of the damage they cause to fruits and other agricultural produce, whereas the moths are obscure and do no direct harm. Conversely, various species of caterp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leaf Miners
A leaf miner is any one of numerous species of insects in which the larval stage lives in, and eats, the leaf tissue of plants. The vast majority of leaf-mining insects are moths ( Lepidoptera), sawflies ( Symphyta, a paraphyletic group which Apocrita (wasps, bees and ants) evolved from), and flies ( Diptera). Some beetles also exhibit this behavior. Like woodboring beetles, leaf miners are protected from many predators and plant defenses by feeding within the tissues of the leaves, selectively eating only the layers that have the least amount of cellulose. When consuming '' Quercus robur'' (English oak), they also selectively feed on tissues containing lower levels of tannin, a deterrent chemical produced in great abundance by the tree. The pattern of the feeding tunnel and the layer of the leaf being mined is often diagnostic of the insect responsible, sometimes even to species level. The mine often contains frass, or droppings, and the pattern of frass deposition, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moth
Moths are a group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not Butterfly, butterflies. They were previously classified as suborder Heterocera, but the group is Paraphyly, paraphyletic with respect to butterflies (suborder Rhopalocera) and neither subordinate taxon is used in modern classifications. Moths make up the vast majority of the order. There are approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of which have yet to be described. Most species of moth are nocturnal, although there are also crepuscular and Diurnal animal, diurnal species. Differences between butterflies and moths While the Butterfly, butterflies form a monophyly, monophyletic group, the moths, comprising the rest of the Lepidoptera, do not. Many attempts have been made to group the superfamilies of the Lepidoptera into natural groups, most of which fail because one of the two groups is not monophyletic: Microlepidoptera and Macrolepidoptera, Heterocera and Rhopalocera, Jugatae a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fungus Gnats
Fungus gnats are small, dark, short-lived gnats, of the families Sciaridae, Diadocidiidae, Ditomyiidae, Keroplatidae, Bolitophilidae, and Mycetophilidae (order Diptera); they comprise six of the seven families placed in the superfamily Sciaroidea. They are also Flies. Description The larvae of most species feed on fungi growing on soil, helping in the decomposition of organic matter. However some species are predatory, including those in the genus ''Arachnocampa'' of family Keroplatidae – the "glowworms" of Australia and New Zealand. The adults are long, and are occasionally pollinators of plants and carriers of mushroom spores. They also may carry diseases such as pythium (which causes " damping-off" to kill seedlings) on their feet. Most fungus gnats are weak fliers, and can often be seen walking rapidly over plants and soil, rather than flying. However, when airborne, the gnats may be quite annoying to humans by flying into their faces, eyes, and noses, both indoors a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mites
Mites are small arachnids (eight-legged arthropods) of two large orders, the Acariformes and the Parasitiformes, which were historically grouped together in the subclass Acari. However, most recent genetic analyses do not recover the two as each other's closest relative within Arachnida, rendering the group invalid as a clade. Most mites are tiny, less than in length, and have a simple, unsegmented body plan. The small size of most species makes them easily overlooked; some species live in water, many live in soil as decomposers, others live on plants, sometimes creating galls, while others are Predation, predators or Parasitism, parasites. This last type includes the commercially destructive ''Varroa'' parasite of honey bees, as well as scabies mites of humans. Most species are harmless to humans, but a few are associated with allergies or may transmit diseases. The scientific discipline devoted to the study of mites is called acarology. Evolution and taxonomy Mites are not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whiteflies
Whiteflies are Hemipterans that typically feed on the undersides of plant leaves. They comprise the family Aleyrodidae, the only family in the superfamily Aleyrodoidea. More than 1550 species have been described. Description and taxonomy The Aleyrodidae are a family in the suborder Sternorrhyncha and at present comprise the entire superfamily Aleyrodoidea, related to the superfamily Psylloidea. The family often occurs in older literature as "Aleurodidae", but that is a junior synonym and accordingly incorrect in terms of the international standards for zoological nomenclature. Aleyrodidae are small insects, most species with a wingspan of less than 3 mm and a body length of 1 mm to 2 mm. Many are so small that their size complicates their control in greenhouses because they can only be excluded by screening with very fine mesh; in fact they can enter mesh so fine that many of their natural enemies cannot come in after them, so that unchecked whitefly population ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
