The timely control of weeds in crop fields is an important task for agricultural industry. Uncontrolled weed growth not only competes with crops for water and nutrients, especially nitrogen, but also hosts harmful pests that damage or contaminate crops. Transmission of pests from the weeds (field reservoir) can trigger pest outbreaks in the environment. For example, a recent study on Fusarium in French maize fields determined that termination of herbicide usage during crop cultivation triggered unexpected increases in mycotoxin contamination in the grains, with near maximum threshold levels for nivalenol. The study identified that the un-controlled weeds in the crop fields functioned as Fusarium reservoirs, thus highlighting the importance of adequate weed control practices for assuring public food safety as well as food security. We developed a sustainable, alternative weed control strategy which uses salicylaldehyde (SA; 2-hydroxybenzaldehyde) as an active ingredient. SA is a redox-active natural compound currently listed as a food additive by the European Food Safety Authority and United States Food and Drug Administration. Repurposing of SA identified that SA possesses both pre- and post-emergent herbicidal, fumigant activity where the emitted SA from the source completely prevented the germination of weed seeds and/or the growth of the germinated weeds. We also developed agricultural byproducts as SA delivery vehicles to the soil, thus promoting the growers’ sustainable byproduct recycling program necessary for carbon sequestration. We determined further that soil covering (soil pasteurization) could be one of the practices to effectively deliver SA to the soil. Notably, SA also possesses an intrinsic antifungal activity that inhibits mycotoxin production by fungi and overcomes the tolerance of the stress signaling mutants of filamentous fungal pathogens to the phenylpyrrole fungicide fludioxonil. Environmental degradation data available in the public database indicate that, once released to the environment, SA will be broken down by sunlight, thus is not built up in aquatic organisms. Altogether, SA can serve as a safe, potent pesticide (herbicidal, fungicidal) ingredient, which promotes sustainable crop production by lowering pesticide burden in the fields.

Natural salicylaldehyde for fungal and pre- and post-emergent weed control

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ACS Fall 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.