Abstract

Contamination with pests is the main problems of stored food products and can defects them from harvest time until storage. Pests have high proliferation rate, global distribution, and sometimes damage foods up to a hundred percent. Nowadays plant materials are used for pest control in warehouses. Volatile essential oils are important compounds to combat fungal pathogens, insects, herbivores and pests in stored food products. Herbs and botanicals have insecticide and insect repellent properties and are good alternative to chemical insecticides. This paper was aimed to have an overview on the most important native medicinal plants against flour beetle. All required information was obtained by searching key words such as flour beetle, medicinal plant extracts or essential oils and Iran of published articles in authentic scientific databases such as Sciencedirect, Blackwell Wiley, Springer, Scopus, Pubmed, Google scholar and Scientific information database (SID) and Magiran. Eucalyptus globulus, Perovskia atriplicifolia, Azadirachta indica Adr. Juss, Artemisia sieberi Besser, Carum copticum C. B. Clarke, Cuminum cyminum L, Bunium persicum Boiss, Elletaria cardamomum Maton, Nerium oleander L, Lavandula officinalis L, Ferula assafoetida L, Rosmarinus officinalis L. Artemisia dracunculus L, Foeniculum vulgare, Satureja hortensis L, Zygophyllum fabago L, Delphinium persicum, Calotropis procera (Ait.) R. Br are the main medicinal plants can affect on flour beetle. They have various compounds and based on the results of phytochemical studies each of active compounds of medicinal plants could have potential anti pest effects against flour beetle. Therefore, it is recommended that all active ingredients are investigated in experimental and pharmacological studies and in case of positive effects, they used for production of natural anti pest compounds against the flour beetle.