Research progress of artificial light control pests and diseases

In many fields of modern agriculture, such as pest control, there is an extremely close relationship with artificial lighting. In the field of agricultural pest control, specific wavelengths of LED light sources can be used to induce and eliminate pests, reduce the amount of pesticides, and achieve safe green production.

In terms of planting, pests have high sensitivity to ultraviolet light and blue light, and they are attracted by the use of high-voltage power grids to destroy the pests. Killed pests can become better fertilizers. The main product spectrum currently used for pest trapping is as follows:

The higher the illuminance, the better the attracting effect. Therefore, the trapping lamp used in outdoor agriculture is mainly based on high-output fluorescent lamps.

The vision of an insect is very different from the vision of the human eye. He perceives it as ultraviolet light. Techniques that use artificial light to control pests in agricultural fields include the use of attracting light (ultraviolet rays) to control pests, investigating the phototaxis of insects, and using ultraviolet light to develop fluorescent lamps for insect traps, which are suitable for relatively closed greenhouses and plant factories. In order to reduce the damage of fruits such as peach and citrus suffered from pests such as night moth, Japan had popularized a kind of yellow-light moth-proof lamp in the country in the 1960s. By the year 2000, it was found that the wavelength that can suppress the maximum amount of insect pest activity was 540 to 545 nm. Therefore, the ideal spectral distribution of the moth-repellent lamp with an efficient anti-moth control function should be near this range. The latest generation of moth-repellent technology uses green-lighted moth-repellent lamps and has little adverse effects on plants.

In addition, in terms of artificial light-induced disease resistance, in recent years, there have been practical applications of artificial light and disease resistance inducing techniques that have reached practical levels. The actual disease prevention techniques used today are: techniques for inducing low resistance to plant diseases due to green light irradiation and techniques for preventing diseases by using ultraviolet (UV-B) radiation to induce plant disease resistance as well.

Apart from being able to regulate the growth and development of edible fungi, the LED light source has application prospects in the field of edible fungus factory production and pest control. Experiments have shown that green, white, and yellow insecticidal lamps have a higher trapping effect on total pests than blue and pink insecticidal lamps. Among them, green shows good trapping effect on many important pests.

In short, it is very important to find out the relationship between the light wavelength and the action of insects, and the laws of plant physiological changes based on the living conditions, habits of plants, and the physiological characteristics of plants. Artificial light prevents pests and diseases by purifying the environment and protecting the ecosystem. Future new pest control techniques using new light sources are also worth looking forward to.