Isolation and Pesticide Activity of Daphnanes of Lasiosiphon Kraussianus

The significance of rodent damage to health, agricultural production or structures has come to be widely recognised as economically very important (1). Plants offer an excellent source of biologically active natural products. The most important botanical rodenticides are scilliroside (2), reserpine (3) and strychnine (4). The natural products used as rodenticides per se are all acute poisons until the discovery of the anticoagulant rodenticides in the early 1950s (4). The spread of rat resistance to anticoagulant rodenticides limited the effectiveness of rat control (5). Therefore, and beside resistance management (6), the development of new natural products, to be directly used or as lead for synthesis, will be the most practicable method to solve most rat problems.