Selenium based product and sinantrop rodents control in agricultural facilities

Abstract

In the function of environment preservation, chemical product used in plant protection are being substituted by environmentally friendly substances. When it comes to rodenticides and rodents not much is done for improvement of the control of these pests on cattle farms and in field crops facilities. A selenium based product, which for its mode of action is more acceptable than chemical products, was investigated in this paper. Rodent death is achieved with a single ingestion and there is no risk of intoxication of non-target organisms. Symptoms of intoxication with this substance are not visible before the death of an individual. The possibility of resistance development is not known as the mode of action of this substance is based on cell death caused by switch of S-H groups in functional cells by S-S bonds. Experiments were conducted according to standard EPPO method. Paraffin baits in boxes were placed at points where the greatest damage caused by rodents was observed. For mice was used 20 g, and for rats 50-100 g. Dynamics of bait ingestion was monitored daily and new quantities were added during the experiment. The abundance of rodents was estimated by dividing the ratio of the minimum and maximum amounts of daily eaten bait during the experiment by daily food needs. The presence of rodents was monitored the following 20 days. The efficacy of tested paraffin products was calculated using Abbott?s formula. The efficacy of this product was compared to the fast acting products based on vitamin D3 and to slow acting bromadiolone based anticoagulants in the experiments with Mus musculus and Rattus norvegicus. Eco-friendly sodium-selenite based product expressed efficacy of 87,5% for house mouse and 88,1% for the gray rat. It had higher efficacy than other products in the experiment.