24. Comparative effect of termiticides and plant extracts on mortality and tunnel formation of Odontotermes obesus

Abstract

Termites play a great role in recycling and decaying of materials but are serious threat to agricultural crops and buildings. There are various practices to control the termites like plant resistance, cultural, biological, physical barriers and synthetic chemicals. Most commonly, synthetic chemicals are used for their control. But the injudicious use of chemicals leads to serious environmental and health problems. Although insecticides of plant origin are safe alternatives to synthetic insecticides but due to their low potential they are not widely used and synthetic chemicals are still playing a great role in insect control. Many plant extracts have been found having anti-termitic properties. The present project was carried out in order to determine the comparative effect of termiticides and plant extracts on mortality and tunnel formation of Odontotermesobesus at Department of plant protection faculty of Agriculture, Ghazi University Dera Ghazi Khan. There were five treatments; two termiticides viz. Bifenthrin and Chlorfenapyr and three plant extracts (Dodonaea viscosa, Rhazya stricta and Citrullus colocynthis). Each treatment consisting of four concentrations i.e., 0% as a control, 1%, 5 % and 10% was tested. The experiment was laid out in Completely Randomized Design and treatments were replicated three times. The data on mortality and tunnel formation was recorded at specific intervals and statistically analyzed by using Kaplan Meier test to determine LT₅₀ values of termiticides and plant extracts. The results showed that Bifenthrin as most effective treatment among chemicals while among plant extracts Dodonaea viscosa was found most effective having lower LT₅₀ values.

Keywords: Insecticides; Mortality; Plant extracts; Termites and Tunnel formation

http://dx.doi.org/10.19045/bspab.2020.90203