Sunlight, heat, and oxygen degraded them within hours
Fall armyworm causes severe damage to over 350 plant species in Brazil, with potential losses reaching 70% in corn crops without intervention. The encapsulated botanical insecticide protects active compounds from sun degradation while reducing application frequency and environmental impact compared to chemical alternatives.
- Fall armyworm feeds on over 350 plant species in Brazil, causing up to 70% crop losses in corn
- Apeiba tibourbou leaves contain tanins and terpenoids with natural insecticidal properties
- Encapsulation protects active compounds from solar degradation while reducing application frequency
- Research team targets 80% larva mortality within 72 hours to match synthetic product effectiveness
Researchers at Unemat are developing an encapsulated natural insecticide from Apeiba tibourbou tree to combat fall armyworm, a major agricultural pest causing up to 70% crop losses in corn.
At a research center in Alta Floresta, in the heart of Mato Grosso state, scientists are working on a problem that costs Brazilian agriculture hundreds of millions of dollars each year. They're developing an encapsulated natural insecticide designed to kill fall armyworms—a pest so destructive that farmers have watched entire corn fields collapse under its appetite.
The fall armyworm, known scientifically as Spodoptera frugiperda, is not a new enemy. Brazilian farmers have battled it for decades. What makes it so dangerous is its indiscriminate hunger. The insect feeds on more than 350 different plant species across the country, from corn and soybeans to cotton, rice, and even forest plantations. When it attacks corn—its preferred target—it bores directly into the plant's growing point, the tender center where new leaves emerge. Left unchecked, a single infestation can destroy up to 70 percent of a corn harvest.
For years, agriculture has relied on two main defenses: heavy chemical spraying and genetically modified crops engineered to resist the pest. But this strategy has backfired. The constant chemical assault has bred populations of armyworms that no longer respond to the poisons. Farmers find themselves trapped in an escalating cycle, applying stronger doses of synthetic insecticides just to keep the pest at bay. The environmental cost mounts with each season.
Enter Juliana Garlet, a forestry engineer and coordinator of the research program at Unemat's Center for Research and Technology in Southern Amazonia. Her team has turned to an unlikely ally: a tree called Apeiba tibourbou, known locally as monkey comb or monkey brush. Growing between 10 and 15 meters tall, the tree produces spiky fruits and leaves packed with natural compounds—tanins and terpenoids—that earlier research had already shown could kill armyworms. The problem was that these botanical extracts fell apart in the field. Sunlight, heat, and oxygen degraded them within hours, leaving farmers with an insecticide that lost its punch almost as soon as it hit the plants.
The solution lies in encapsulation. Garlet's team is essentially wrapping the active molecules from the Apeiba leaves inside tiny protective shells made from inexpensive, water-soluble materials. This simple innovation serves three critical functions at once: it shields the compound from solar degradation, making it stable enough to survive in the field; it makes the product easier for farmers to handle and transport; and it allows the active ingredient to release slowly and steadily over time, meaning fewer applications are needed. The result is a more efficient insecticide that demands less labor and causes less environmental disruption than either heavy chemical spraying or repeated applications of unstable botanical extracts.
The research is still in its early stages. Garlet's team continues running laboratory tests, breeding armyworms in controlled conditions to measure how effectively the encapsulated extract kills them. The goal is clear: achieve at least 80 percent mortality within 72 hours, matching the kill rate of commercial synthetic products but without the ecological damage. Once laboratory results are solid, the work moves to greenhouse trials and then to real farm conditions, where the true test begins—whether the insecticide performs as well when armyworms are actually feeding on living plants under the sun.
If those field trials succeed, the path to market opens. But Garlet and her colleagues are already thinking beyond the current encapsulation method. They're exploring nanoencapsulation, a more advanced technique that could further improve the product's stability and effectiveness. They're also seeking partnerships with agricultural companies that could help scale production and distribution. What began as a laboratory experiment in Alta Floresta could eventually become a tool available to farmers across Brazil—a way to fight back against a pest that has reshaped how the country grows its food.
Citações Notáveis
It became urgent to search for new ecological compounds as resistance to chemical and transgenic methods accelerated— Juliana Garlet, project coordinator
Encapsulation protects the compound against solar degradation, facilitates farmer handling and transport, and allows controlled release of the active ingredient in the field, reducing application frequency— Juliana Garlet
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does this particular tree matter? There must be other plants with insecticidal properties.
The Apeiba tibourbou had already been tested by Garlet's group in earlier work. They knew it worked. The breakthrough wasn't finding a new plant—it was solving the problem that made botanical insecticides impractical in the first place. The leaves degrade too fast in sunlight. Once you solve that, you have something farmers can actually use.
So the encapsulation is the real innovation here, not the plant itself.
Exactly. The encapsulation is what transforms a laboratory curiosity into a field-ready tool. You're protecting the compound, extending its life, and reducing how often a farmer has to spray. That's three problems solved at once.
What happens if this works? Does it replace chemical spraying entirely?
Probably not entirely, at least not immediately. But it gives farmers another option when resistance builds up, which it always does. Right now they're trapped—chemicals stop working, so they spray more, which breeds more resistance. This breaks that cycle.
The 80 percent mortality target—is that realistic?
It has to be. If it kills fewer armyworms than synthetic products, farmers won't switch. They need to know it works as well as what they're already using. The difference is what happens to the soil and water afterward.
What's the timeline looking like?
They're still in the lab phase. Greenhouse trials come next, then field trials. After that, they need regulatory approval and industrial partnerships to manufacture it at scale. We're probably talking years, not months. But the research is moving forward.