Terracing field slopes can concurrently mitigate soil erosion and promote sustainable pest management.

Convincing farmers to allot refuge areas for natural enemies is a challenge due to their fear of losing farming space. But, increasing the benefits beyond enhancing natural enemy conservation may further incentivize the adoption of refuge areas, which then would concomitantly favor biological control and other purposes. For example, the construction of terrace embankments on field slopes is essential to mitigate soil erosion; and this is better attained when vegetation occurs atop the terraces. Our insight is that these vegetated terraces can serve a dual purpose of preventing soil erosion as well as sheltering natural enemies and potentially diverting the attack of herbivorous pests. Therefore, in this two-year field study we assessed the abundance of natural enemies and pests as well as leaf damage and plant mass in maize plots cultivated between either vegetated or unvegetated terraces. The proportion of maize defoliation in the unvegetated-terrace treatment was about twice as high as the defoliation observed in the vegetated-terrace treatment during both years. The most abundant spontaneous vegetation occurring on the terraces comprised the grasses Panicum maximum Jacq. and Brachiaria decumbens (Stapf), which appeared to shelter herbivorous pests such as leafhoppers, spittlebugs and Chrysomelidae beetles as well as natural enemies. Specifically, a higher abundance of flying predators including wasps, ladybeetles and syrphids was observed in the vegetated-terrace treatment. Taken together, these results indicate the potential for vegetated terraces to concurrently mitigate soil erosion and promote pest control by means of enhancing natural enemy conservation as well as diverting pest attack.

Norbixin ingestion did not induce any detectable DNA breakage in liver and kidney but caused a considerable impairment in plasma glucose levels of rats and mice.

From the seeds of Bixa orellana are extracted the carotenoids bixin and norbixin that have been widely used for coloring food. In this study, the toxicity of norbixin, purified or not (annatto extract containing 50% norbixin), was investigated in mice and rats after 21 days of ingestion through drinking water. Mice were exposed to doses of 56 and 351 mg/kg (annatto extract) and 0.8, 7.6, 66 and 274 mg/kg (norbixin). Rats were exposed to doses of 0.8, 7.5 and 68 mg/kg (annatto extract) and 0.8, 8.5 and 74 mg/kg (norbixin). In rats, no toxicity was detected by plasma chemistry. In mice, norbixin induced an increase in plasma alanine aminotransferase activity (ALT) while both norbixin and annatto extract induced a decrease in plasma total protein and globulins (P < 0.05). However, no signs of toxicity were detected in liver by histopathological analysis. No enhancement in DNA breakage was detected in liver or kidney from mice treated with annatto pigments, as evaluated by the comet assay. Nevertheless, there was a remarkable effect of norbixin on the glycemia of both rodent species. In rats, norbixin induced hyperglycemia that ranged from 26.9% (8.5 mg/kg norbixin, to 52.6% (74 mg/kg norbixin, P < 0.01) above control levels. In mice, norbixin induced hypoglycemia that ranged from 14.4% (0.8 mg/kg norbixin, P < 0.05) to 21.5% (66 mg/kg norbixin, P < 0.001) below control levels. Rats and mice treated with annatto pigments showed hyperinsulinemia and hypoinsulinemia, respectively indicating that pancreatic beta-cells were functional. More studies should be performed to fully understand of how species-related differences influences the biological fate of norbixin.