Efficacy of selected botanicals, phosphine and boric acid against pulse beetle, Callosobruchus chinensis under laboratory conditions

Abstract

Insect pests are a threat to both growing field crops and stored grain commodities during storage. There are different stored pests which affect the mung bean (Vigna radiata) all over the world. Most important destructive pest is Pulse beetle Callosobruchus chinensis which cause lot of losses during storage of mung bean. Different pesticides are being used to control the Pulse beetle but these pesticides have harmful effect on human health, grain quality and development of insect resistant population. The replacement approaches for pest management in food items is a growing need in the food sector, which should match customer requests for pesticide reduction or eradication. In the present study impact of phosphine, boric acid and botanicals (Neem and Eucalyptus) on adult stage of pulse beetle Callosobruchus chinensis was evaluated at 65 ±5% RH, 30±1°C. The pulse beetles were exposed to phosphine, boric acid at the different concentrations like phosphine 2g, 1g, & 0.5g, boric acid 0.25g, 0.12g & 0.06g and botanicals leaves 2g, 5g and 10g for 24h, 48h and 72h was evaluated. Maximum mortality (98%) by phosphine at 0.25 g, boric acid (95%) at 0.25 g, neem leaves (96%) at 10g and eucalyptus (95%) at 10g after 72h was observed. This technique is a best and eco-friendly to controlling pulse beetles. This technique has no any adverse or residual effect on the quality of grains.