Abstract
With the aim of selecting potential botanical insecticides, seven plant extracts (Daphne mucronata (Family: Thymelaeaceae), Tagetes minuta (Asteraceae), Calotropis procera (Apocynaceae), Boenninghausenia albiflora (Rutaceae), Eucalyptus sideroxylon (Myrtaceae), Cinnamomum camphora (Lauraceae) and Isodon rugosus (Lamiaceae)) were screened for their toxic effects against four important agricultural pest insects, each representing a separate insect order; pea aphids of Acyrthosiphon pisum (Hemiptera), fruit flies of Drosophila melanogaster (Diptera), red flour beetles of Tribolium castaneum (Coleoptera), and armyworms of Spodoptera exigua (Lepidoptera). Aphids were the most susceptible insect with 100% mortality observed after 24 h for all the plant extracts tested. Further bioassays with lower concentrations of the plant extracts against aphids, revealed the extracts from I. rugosus (LC50 36 ppm and LC90 102 ppm) and D. mucronata (LC50 126 ppm and LC90 198 ppm) to be the most toxic to aphids. These most active plant extracts were further fractionated into different solvent fractions on polarity basis and their insecticidal activity evaluated. While all the fractions showed considerable mortality in aphids, the most active was the butanol fraction from I. rugosus with an LC50 of 18 ppm and LC90 of 48 ppm. Considering that high mortality was observed in aphids within 24 h of exposure to a very low concentration of the butanol fraction from I. rugosus, we believe this could be exploited and further developed as a potential plant-based insecticide against sucking insect pests, such as aphids.
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Acknowledgements
We greatly thank the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan for financial support to Saira Khan through its International Research Support Initiative Program (IRSIP) for conducting part of her doctoral research at Ghent University, Belgium.
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Highlights
• Insecticide activity of botanical extracts against four important agricultural pests: Acyrthosiphon pisum (Hemiptera), Drosophila melanogaster (Diptera), Tribolium castaneum (Coleoptera) and Spodoptera exigua (Lepidoptera)
• Acyrthosiphon pisum aphids were the most susceptible with 100% mortality observed after 24 h for all the plant extracts tested
• First report that the butanol fraction of Isodon rugosus was identified to show the highest insecticidal activity at very low concentrations among all of the tested fractions against A. pisum.
Saira Khan and Clauvis Nji Tizi Taning contributed equally to this work.
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Khan, S., Taning, C.N.T., Bonneure, E. et al. Insecticidal activity of plant-derived extracts against different economically important pest insects. Phytoparasitica 45, 113–124 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12600-017-0569-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12600-017-0569-y