Journal of Taiwan Agricultural Research

Author:Gerard R. Lazo, Shu-Chen Chang, Hsien-Tzung Shih, Hong Huang, Christopher M. Wallis, Adalberto Á. Pérez de León, and Jianchi Chen*

Abstract:

Research to develop safer pest control technologies is critical for modern agricultural crop protection. This need is heightened by public concern with drawbacks associated with the intense use of synthetic chemical pesticides resulting in human and non-target organism toxicity and pests resistant to agrochemical treatments. In contrast, microbial pesticides are environmentally friendly, and their use presents low risk for the development of resistance in target pest populations. Thousands of research publications on microbial pesticides accumulated since the 1950s and available in PDF (electronic format) could be analyzed to identify research areas to innovate microbial pesticides for sustainable pest control. However, searching through a large volume of research manuscripts is challenging for researchers due to limitations for exhaustive data mining and potential inaccuracies extracting massive science data. The use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools could assist in reviews by facilitating the identification of publications across scientific disciplines with information that scientists can use to accelerate microbial pesticide research and innovation. This study employed a GenAI tool to assist reviewing 750 PDF publications on microbial pesticides collected from public databases. Summaries of relevant papers identified rapidly were queried by the co-authors with expertise in plant pathology and entomology to prepare a manuscript. Actual intelligence was practiced further by subjecting the manuscript to further evaluation and revision incorporating the co-authors’ expertise emphasizing genomic research. Advantages and disadvantages of using GenAI technology in making literature reviews are discussed herein. This mini-review highlights the use of microbial pesticides in agriculture to provide long-term pest management options and documents how GenAI can assist actual intelligence to ideate agricultural research for sustainable crop protection.

Key words:Microbial pesticide, Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), PDF publications, Bacterial biopesticides, Fungal biopesticides, Genomic

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