In the current pest control process in China, chemical pesticides are still the most important means of prevention and control. Chemical pesticides have played a huge role in protecting crops and recovering production losses, but they have also brought about problems such as pesticide residues, environmental pollution, killing natural enemies, and pest resistance. In recent years, insect-based attractants have been gradually promoted as an environmentally-friendly and efficient new insect-killing tool in various parts of the country, and have become a good helper for farmers to deal with pests.

It is understood that sexual attractants mainly use the principle of releasing sex pheromones to attract heterosexual adults when insects mature, and artificially synthesize insect sex pheromone compounds, which can reduce the number of fertilized eggs and achieve the purpose of controlling target pests by interfering with male and female mating.

Sheng Chengfa, a researcher at the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, who has been engaged in research on pest control for a long time, said that insect-based attractants can play a role in monitoring insect pests, trapping adults, interfering with mating, protecting natural enemies, reducing pollution, etc. in the integrated pest control. Low cost, simple operation method, good control effect, non-toxic and harmless. Its application in developed countries such as the United States and Japan has become very common and has played a huge role in the production of green and organic food. "The successful case of international application of attractants should be the first to extinguish the cotton boll weevil in the United States. The boll weevil was introduced to the United States from Mexico in 1892, and has been the number one pest of US cotton for more than 100 years, causing direct economic losses of up to $22 billion. Many years ago, scientists found its sexual attractant. After more than 10 years of hard work, the insect has disappeared and become a model in the history of world pest control."

In the practice and application process in various parts of China, the advantages of sexual attractants have gradually emerged. According to statistics, the application of attractants to control agricultural pests, the average control effect can reach 50% to 80%, each chemical season can reduce the use of chemical pesticides 2 to 3 times, reduce the use of pesticides by more than 30%, the cost per acre Save more than 30 yuan than the chemical control area, the comprehensive benefits are very significant. Not only can reduce the amount of pesticides, reduce pesticide residues, sexual attractants against the strong drug of Spodoptera litura, Plutella xylostella, tobacco budworm and other pests, there is an advantage that chemical pesticides can not match.

It is understood that domestic insect attractant research has been more than 40 years old. After three generations of scientists, the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed and improved a variety of sexual attractants. For example, the animal has successfully developed a high-efficiency attractant of P. The moth-inducing effect is three to five times that of conventional technology products, and the cost is less than one-fifth of that of similar foreign products. It is considered to be the biggest breakthrough in the field for more than 30 years at home and abroad.

At present, the application of sexual attractants in China's grain and cotton crops and vegetable and fruit trees has begun to take shape.

“In recent years, China’s sexual attractant technology has developed rapidly, and the use of plant-derived attractants has also made significant progress. Various types of traps, including water basins, viscose, shrouds, funnels, electric shocks, and poisoning, are also being improved. Sheng Chengfa said that despite this, compared with developed countries such as the United States and Japan, the use of domestic attractants is still in its infancy. At present, there are hundreds of insect attractants in the world. The domestic medicinal amount of domestic attractants is less than 1% of the world total. There are huge development opportunities for related types, technologies and equipment.