Abstract
During storage, maize grains are severely destroyed by insects and other pests. One of the most important causes of grain loss in stored maize is the damage caused by Angoumois grain moth, Sitotroga cereallela O. A study was conducted to evaluate selected locally available botanical powders and two cooking oils for their effectiveness as grain protectants against S. cereallela at Jimma University College of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine in 2011. The plant powders and cooking oils were compared with untreated control and Malathion super dust as standard control. The experiment was laid-out in completely randomized design with three replications for each treatment. Different dependent variables such as adult mortality, F1 progeny emergency and grain damage were assessed. The results revealed that there was an increase in adult mortality, decrease in F1 progeny emergency and grain damage as a result of botanical powders and cooking oils application to maize grains. Among the botanicals, very low mortality of 27.80% was recorded from Maesa lanceolata (with LT50 of 219.8 days) and Echinops kebericho (with LT50 of 338.10 days) similar to the untreated control. Cumulative mortality of 39.00% was registered from Azadirachta indica bark powder (with LT50 of 30.40 days) and Cympopogon citratus leaf (with LT50of 171 days) against Sitotroga cerealella 20 days after insect exposure to the botanicals. Maximum moths mortality, 94.4%, was recorded from standard control (Malathion) followed by the two cooking oils (77.8%). No F1 progeny emerged from the grains treated with the two cooking oils similar to the standard chemical over the exposure period of 40 days leading to no seed with hole, minimum weight loss and maximum seed germination percentage (97.30%). Thus, the two cooking oils were found to be most potent bio-insecticides against maize grain moth on par with standard check, Malathion. Key words: Angomois grain moth, Sitotroga cereallela, cooking oils, exposure time, grain damage, maize grains, mortality and plant powders.
Highlights
Cereals are said to be the dominant source of nutrition for one-third of the world’s population especially in developing and underdeveloped nations of Sub-Saharan Africa and South-east Asia
The results revealed that there was an increase in adult mortality, decrease in F1 progeny emergency and grain damage as a result of botanical powders and cooking oils application to maize grains
The results of an experiment conducted to determine the effectiveness of botanical powders and cooking oils against S. cerelleala with respect to percentage adult mortality, F1 progeny emergence, maize grain weight loss, number of perforated maize grain seeds and percentage germination are presented as follows
Summary
Cereals are said to be the dominant source of nutrition for one-third of the world’s population especially in developing and underdeveloped nations of Sub-Saharan Africa and South-east Asia. Among the cereals; rice, wheat and maize constitute about 85% of total global production (Sofia et al, 2009). Maize (Zea mays L.) is an important cereal crop in Africa serving as source of food, feed and industrial raw material (Meseret, 2011). Storage insect pests are the primary causes of loss for maize grains in storage. Losing crops to insect pests constitutes a great constraint to the realization of food security worldwide. In order to meet the food demand for the ever increasing world population, it is necessary to address the issue of maize grain loss to insect pest damage in storage
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