The selective application of insecticides is one of the cornerstones of integrated pest management (IPM) and management strategies for pest resistance to insecticides. The present work provides a comprehensive overview of the traditional and new methods for the application of gas, liquid, gel, and solid physical insecticide formulations to control stored-product and food industry urban pests from the taxa Acarina, Blattodea, Coleoptera, Diptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, Psocoptera, and Zygentoma. Various definitions and concepts historically and currently used for various pesticide application formulations and methods are also described. This review demonstrates that new technological advances have sparked renewed research interest in the optimization of conventional methods such as insecticide aerosols, sprays, fumigants, and inert gases. Insect growth regulators/disruptors (IGRs/IGDs) are increasingly employed in baits, aerosols, residual treatments, and as spray-residual protectants for long-term stored-grain protection. Insecticide-impregnated hypoxic multilayer bags have been proven to be one of the most promising low-cost and safe methods for hermetic grain storage in developing countries. Insecticide-impregnated netting and food baits were originally developed for the control of urban/medical pests and have been recognized as an innovative technology for the protection of stored commodities. New biodegradable acaricide gel coatings and nets have been suggested for the protection of ham meat. Tablets and satchels represent a new approach for the application of botanicals. Many emerging technologies can be found in the form of impregnated protective packaging (insect growth regulators/disruptors (IGRs/IGDs), natural repellents), pheromone-based attracticides, electrostatic dust or sprays, nanoparticles, edible artificial sweeteners, hydrogels, inert baits with synthetic attractants, biodegradable encapsulations of active ingredients, and cyanogenic protective grain coatings. Smart pest control technologies based on RNA-based gene silencing compounds incorporated into food baits stand at the forefront of current strategic research. Inert gases and dust (diatomaceous earth) are positive examples of alternatives to synthetic pesticide products, for which methods of application and their integration with other methods have been proposed and implemented in practice. Although many promising laboratory studies have been conducted on the biological activity of natural botanical insecticides, published studies demonstrating their effective industrial field usage in grain stores and food production facilities are scarce. This review shows that the current problems associated with the application of some natural botanical insecticides (e.g., sorption, stability, field efficacy, and smell) to some extent echo problems that were frequently encountered and addressed almost 100 years ago during the transition from ancient to modern classical chemical pest control methods.

Insects and mites are common inhabitants and accidental invaders of food, including durable commodities, and their presence can have both direct and indirect effects on human health. The most common direct effect is contamination of food with arthropod fragments and related contaminants, which may be allergenic or even carcinogenic. The most important indirect effect is that their presence can change the storage microenvironment, making durable products suitable for the rapid development of fungi and other microorganisms. Some of these fungi can produce toxins (e.g., aflatoxins) that endanger human health. Insects may actively or passively contribute to the spread of microorganisms, increasing product contamination, and they may host bacteria that have developed antibiotic resistance, contributing to their spread in food. Several species also may host, attract, or transmit tapeworms, predators, or parasitoids that may affect health. This review synthesizes research on these topics and suggests directions for future research.

Low temperatures play an important role in arthropods because they affect both the individual and population development of all physiological and behavioural activities. Manipulation with low temperatures is a primary nonchemical pest control method. For stored product and food industry practitioners, a knowledge of pest thermal requirements, in particular threshold temperatures at which development and other activities of a particular pest species cease, is of crucial importance. This review presents summary data regarding the lower temperature thresholds of 121 species of stored product and food industry pests from six arthropod taxa (Acari, Coleoptera, Lepidoptera, Psocoptera, Diptera, and Blattodea). In particular, this review collected and summarized information regarding the lower development thresholds, lower population thresholds, lower acoustic or respiratory thresholds, lower walking and flying thresholds and lower trap capture thresholds for flying and walking arthropods. The average lower development threshold (LDT) differed among orders: the lowest was reported for Acari (6.8 °C) and Diptera (8.1 °C), followed by Lepidoptera (11.3 °C) and Psocoptera (13.8 °C), and the highest was reported for Coleoptera (14 °C) and Blattodea (15 °C). An exclusion-function was established showing the percentage of pest species (n = 112) that were developmentally suppressed (excluded) due to temperatures reaching the LDT in the range of decreasing temperatures from 25 °C to 0 °C. We scaled various temperature thresholds from the lowest to highest temperature as follows: the walking threshold, the trap capture threshold for walking insects, the lower development threshold, lower population threshold, lower flying threshold and the lower trap capture threshold for flying pests. Important pest species were identified for which information regarding the lower temperature threshold is missing, or for which the information is too variable and should be refined in future research.

Anticoagulants are the most frequently used rodenticides at the global scale. Because of their persistency, bioaccumulation and potential for secondary intoxication, they have faced increasing legislative regulations. Recently, the European Union Regulation (EU) 2016/1179 resulted in the production and application of rodenticides with nearly half dose (<30 ppm) of anticoagulants. However, published data on the biological efficacy of rodenticides with decreased doses are scarce in the EU. Therefore, this work compared the efficacy of the original high-dose (50 ppm) and new low-dose (25 ppm) brodifacoum-based baits in the offspring of wild-caught house mice (Mus musculus L.). In the no-choice laboratory feeding tests, 100% animals died in all treated groups and 0% died in the control groups. The achieved time to death did not differ between the original and low-dose baits across both types of feeding trials/regimes. The low-dose baits (25 ppm) were consequently tested under field conditions in two populations showing 95.7% and 99.8% efficacy. The obtained results highlighted the good efficacy of the new baits based on low-dose brodifacoum in non-resistant mouse populations. However, further validation is required regarding the remaining anticoagulant compounds and resistant rodent populations.

Phosphine is globally the most widely adopted fumigant for the control of storage pests. Recently, an increase in the frequency of stored-product pest resistance has been observed with significant geographical and interspecific variations. In this context, there are available data for the occurrence of resistant populations from America, Asia, Africa, and Australia, but there are few data in the case of Europe. Therefore, the aim of this work was to evaluate phosphine efficacy in important beetle pests of stored products, i.e., Sitophilus oryzae (L.), Oryzaephilus surinamensis (L.), and Rhyzopertha dominica (F.) sampled from the Czech Republic, using a rapid diagnostic test that is based on the speed to knockdown after exposure. Apart from the standard laboratory populations, which were used as the controls, we tested 56 field populations of these three species, collected in Czech farm grain stores. The survey revealed that 57.1% of the tested field populations were classified as phosphine-susceptible, based on the knockdown method used. However, profound variations among species and populations were recorded. The species with the highest percentage of resistant populations was R. dominica (71.4% of the populations; resistance coefficient 0.5–4.1), followed by S. oryzae (57.1% of the populations; resistance coefficient 0.8–6.9), and O. surinamensis (9.5% of the populations; resistance coefficient 0.5–2.9). Regarding the intra-population variability in response to phosphine (slope of the knockdown time regression), the laboratory and slightly resistant populations of all species were homogenous, whereas the most resistant populations were strongly heterogeneous. Our data show that the occurrence of resistance in the Czech Republic is relatively widespread and covers a wide range of species, necessitating the need for the adoption of an action plan for resistance mitigation.

Primary pests such asRhyzoperta dominicamay increase the contents of dockage, dust, and frass in grain mass. Although it has been suggested that frass can affect the population growth of stored product pests and ecological interactions among primary and secondary pests in stored grain, this has not been validated experimentally. Therefore, this work experimentally tested the hypothesis thatR. dominicawheat frass may support population increases in secondary pests such asTribolium confusum,T. castaneum,andOryzaephilus surinamensisfor the first time. The effect of frass on secondary pest performance was compared with the effects of various physical qualities of wheat grain (i.e., intact grain kernels, grain fragments, flour, grain + frass) and an artificially enriched control diet (milled wheat kernels, oat flakes, and yeast). The results showed that the clean intact grain kernels did not support the population growth of any tested species, and the nutrient-rich control diet provided the best support. Frass was a significantly better food medium forO. surinamensisandT. castaneumthan flour or cracked grain, whileT. confusumperformed equally well on flour and frass. Our results showed that in terms of food quality and suitability for the tested species, frass occupied an intermediate position between the optimized breeding diet and simple uniform cereal diets such as cracked grain or flour. The results suggest that (i) the wheat frass of primary pestR. dominicais a riskier food source for the development of the tested secondary pests than intact or cracked wheat grain or flour; (ii) frass has the potential to positively influence interspecific interactions betweenR. dominicaand the tested secondary pests; and (iii) wheat grain should be cleaned if increases inR. dominicapopulations and/or accumulated frass are detected.