Many products in the pipeline coming from the USA are mixtures of essential oils.
Products in the pipeline (continued from last month)
These compounds are USDA approved, they are also GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) by the FDA—meaning they can be used in food products.
They also met the seven criteria for federal exemption by the US EPA, which includes no history of issues using the products and no persistence in the environment.
There is no re-entry interval, or pre/postharvest interval—meaning spraying and harvesting can happen on the same day.
Because essential oils have a unique mode of action and are so effective, they can also be used as a valuable tool for rotating or tank mixing in with other chemistries to help combat resistance to the synthetic chemicals.
Botanicals for agriculture
In the history of botanicals, people have used them either as repellents or attractants, and nobody has looked at the compounds themselves: the structure/activity relationship, the mode of action, stability in the environment, will they emulsify, will they be useful in an agricultural setting as opposed to a homeowner setting?
Now the science of formulation and development is applied to produce products in a manner it would be consistently effective in commercial applications.
See this article in Tree Fruit May 2018
