The exquisite specificity of insects chemical language is not surprising, considering that it is often the only means insects have for finding each other. Researchers have now broken the code for the pheromone communication of more than 1,600 insects. In so doing they have found that pheromones serve many more purposes than simply attracting mates.
As already discussed, Pheromones are powerful sex attractants. Till now hundreds of pheromones are known with which one sex (usually the female) of an insect species attracts its mates. Many of these sex attractants (Pheromones) - or their close chemical relatives - are available commercially and these are proved very effective as Pesticides against many pests in two ways:
1) Male Confusion

Distributing a pheromone throughout an area masks the insect’s own sex attractant and thus may prevent the sexes getting together. The male cannot find the respective female for more than hundred days and hence the offspring rate reduces extensively. This “communication disruption” has been used successfully against a wide variety of important pests. For example, the sex attractant of the cotton boll weevil has reduced the need for conventional chemical insecticides by more than half in some cotton-growing areas.
2)Insect Monitoring
Insect Pheromones are also valuable […]

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