ELUCIDING THE COMPOSITION OF FIXED OIL FROM CAATINGA PLANTS: AN ECOLOGICAL AND BIOCHEMICAL VIEW OF BOTANICAL BIOPESTICS
Bioproduct, Biocontrol, Microbiota, Biochemistry, Caatinga plants, insect behavior.Phytosanitary management is preponderant in the management of crops, given the imminent need to increase the production and quality of agricultural products. Allied to this intense demand for productivity is the increasing use of pesticides, which, despite being efficient in reducing the pest population, has some side effects that are crucial for the maintenance of human and/or animal food health, as well as food health. environment. Excessive and indiscriminate use of these chemicals results in contamination, insect resistance and negative environmental outcomes, which together have a significant impact on human health. Faced with this dichotomy between high productivity and environmental sustainability, many studies have bioprospected new sources of biopesticides, commonly essential oils extracted from plants. Despite the intense search for new compounds, the panorama of botanical bioinputs for the control of agricultural pests still presents a certain inconsistency, both in relation to the active ingredient of the biopesticides and its formulation or obtaining. Therefore, the present work presents a well-defined, congruent and innovative hypothesis; i) the fixed oil extracted by cold pressing has a composition of distinct secondary metabolites and a beneficial and non-opportunistic microbial community, of crucial importance for assisting in integrated pest management, which is normally excluded from the process of obtaining oils or hydrolates, when used in extraction methodologies most commonly used by the scientific community.