To preserve the environment, English researchers are experimenting to make plants capable of optimizing crops. They could thus replace pesticides, which pollute groundwater. But the road is still long, says the journalist Anicet Mbida Europe 1.

ON DECRYPT

Plants that avoid spreading chemicals in nature, is the project on which boards of English researchers. These plants would indeed be able to attract or to drive away certain insects, by secreting pheromones, chemical substances. These can, depending on the needs, stimulate or inhibit the reproduction of insects. "These plants will, for example, trapping males by posing as females, who can no longer mate and lay their larvae on crops," says Anicet Mbida, a journalist specializing in innovations for Europe 1.

Genetically modified plants

Another advantage: pheromones can "target a particular species while insecticides will kill all butterflies, grasshoppers and ladybugs," he says.

How do these plants make pheromones? "They have been genetically modified," says Anicet Mdiba, adding that the plants designed by researchers are beginning to be tested in the open field on the other side of the Channel. But the use of pheromones is not new, according to Anicet Mbida. "Pheromones are already being used to avoid insecticides, they have proved effective, but they are very expensive chemicals to develop when it is much easier to plant a few plants," he says.

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If these plants enter the market someday, we may not need pesticides.