Plant exposure to herbivore-induced plant volatiles: a sustainable approach through eliciting plant defenses

Modern agricultural policies across the globe are committed to a significant reduction in chemical pesticide dependency; however, pest management strategies still based on use of synthetic pesticides. There is an urgent need find new, sustainable and biorational tools for programs. Plants communicate with each other activate defense mechanisms against pests using herbivore-induced plant volatiles (HIPVs). The such HIPVs could be ecologically alternative. However, as now, there have been no comprehensive studies HIPVs, from selection practical industry production. Here, we describe first case HIPV successfully implemented control under commercial greenhouse conditions. In this research, tomato plants induced (Z)-3-hexenyl propanoate [(Z)-3-HP] were less susceptible attack economically important pests. We designed calibrated polymeric dispensers constant release (Z)-3-HP. These maintained defenses activated more than two months reducing herbivore damage without productivity. Transcriptomic metabolomic analyses (Z)-3-HP confirmed that genes involved specialized anti-herbivore up-regulated, resulting increased production fatty acid-derived compounds, activation lipoxygenase pathway accumulation specific compounds. Our work demonstrates conditions how elicitors via can integrated new tool control.