The Potential of Bamboo Vinegar (Gigantochloa albociliata) as Insecticide

Abstract

The use of insecticides has become indispensable in modern agriculture. However, synthetic insecticides such as organochlorine insecticides, organophosphate insecticides and carbamates insecticides do pose a potential risk and unwanted side effects to humans and other life forms. Meanwhile, the use of organic insecticides which is based on plant’s extracts is safer to the ecosystems and human. This study aims to produce organic insecticides from bamboo vinegar. The bamboo vinegar was produced from bamboo (Gigantochloa albociliata) by pyrolysis method, and the chemical constituents of the bamboo vinegar were determined using gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Then, the effectiveness of the bamboo vinegar as insecticide was evaluated against Drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies). It was found that the percentage yield of bamboo vinegar is (39.43 ± 0.37%) and bamboo tar is (19.25 ± 0.22%). The major compounds in bamboo vinegar were phenol derivatives (40.75%) and acetic acid (8.45%). The test against fruit flies indicated that pure bamboo vinegar (100% v/v) exhibits equivalent insecticidal properties with commercial insecticide in eliminating D. melanogaster with 2.37 mortality/min for pure bamboo vinegar and 4.40 mortality/min for commercial insecticide, and the time difference in terminating fruit flies is only 2 min. This shows that bamboo vinegar has potential as insecticides.