Indian Journal of Science and Technology
Year: 2020, Volume: 13, Issue: 25, Pages: 2575-2581
Original Article
C Kathirvelu1*, A S Maline2, S Sivasankari2
1Department of Entomology, Faculty of Agriculture, Annamalai University, Chidambaram, 608 002, TN
2Department of Entomology, Faculty of Agriculture, Annamalai University, Chidambaram, 608 002, TN
*Corresponding Author
Email: [email protected]
Received Date:02 April 2020, Accepted Date:28 April 2020, Published Date:21 July 2020
Objectives: To develop a method to replace the usage of synthetic fumigants in stored product pest management. Methodology: For this purpose, we employed four plant based essential oils namely, Lantana camara (Lantana) oil, Citronella nardus (Citronella) oil, Cinnamomum zeylanicum (Cinnamon) oil and Trachyspermmum copicum (Ajwain) oil and evaluated against pulse beetle, Callosobruchus chinensis L., and rice weevil, Sitophilus oryzae L., for their fumigant toxicity and the weight loss caused by them. The oils of Lantana and Citronella were extracted from leaves, Cinnamon and Ajwain from barks and seeds respectively. Findings: Among the essential oils tested for fumigant toxicity, C. zeylanicum performed better with Lethal Concentration (LC50) of 23.16 and 21.91ml in minimal period of exposure i.e. at 12 h of treatment and found effective against adults of test insects viz., C. chinensis, and S. oryzae respectively. During the maximum period of exposure i.e. at 72 h. the fumigation efficacy of T. copicum was noticed to be the highest (3.43 ml) against adults of C. chinensis whereas C. zeylanicum was found better against S. oryzae (6.19ml). The minimum loss of pulse grains was observed in C. zeylanicum treated at 60 % of 24 h LC50 ; with 7.41 % weight loss. The minimum weight loss was noticed in C. zeylanicum about 60 % of 24 h LC50 with 9.68 per cent against S. oryzae. The fumigant toxicity bioassay revealed that as the exposure period increases, mortality of test insects also found increased i.e. exposure period directly proportional to mortality of insects.
Keywords: Coleoptera; essential oils; fumigant toxicity; stored product pests; volatiles
© 2020 Kathirvelu, Maline, Sivasankari.This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Published By Indian Society for Education and Environment (iSee)
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