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Wet land weed Sphaeranthus indicus Asteraceae (Linn.) a potential green pesticide for managing Angoumois grain moth Sitotroga cerealella (Oliv.)

D. Srinivasan and L. Nadarajan
Department of Agricultural Entomology,
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru College of Agriculture and Research Institute,
Karaikal, U. T. of Pondicherry,
India.609 603.

ABSTRACT Screening extracts of nine different plants for the insecticidal activity to the Angoumois grain moth, Sitotroga cerealella (Olivier) was carried out. The plants used are Negundo (Vitex negundo) (Linn.)., East Indian Globe Thistle (Sphaeranthus indicus) (Linn.), Jamaica mountain sage (Lantana camara) (Linn.)., Dry chillies (Capsicum annum) (Linn.)., Soap berry (Sapindus emarginatus) (Vahl.)., Curry leaf (Murraya koenigii) (Linn.)., Indigo (Tephrosia purpurea) (Linn.)., Crotons (Crotons sparsiflorus) (Linn.). and candle stick (Cassia alata) (Linn.). Among them V. negundo has proved to have high efficacy for reducing the percent infestation and weight loss without affecting the germination. The adult longevity of S. cerealella was also reduced. Next comes the wet land weed S. indicus which was equal to that of negundo in efficacy. As S. indicus was having ethnopharmacological properties and not studied extensively for their toxicological character, further fractionation was carried out by using column chromatography techniques. Fractions from acetone and acetonitrile extraction showed their efficacy in reducing the percent infestation and weight loss due to their insecticidal activity effect on this pest.

KEYWORDS Vitex negundo, Sphaeranthus indicus, Sitotroga cerealella, Insecticidal activity, Fractionation.

INTRODUCTION Rice is stored either as paddy or as rice. But considerable loss to a tune of 6.58 percent is bound to occur during storage due to various infections (Dutta, 1984).

Among the insects, the Angoumois grain moth, Sitotroga cerealella (Olivier) (O: Lepidoptera: F: Gelechiidae) is a serious pest damaging the whole grains of paddy (Champ and Dyte, 1977). However, the use of chemicals against storage pests not only increased the cost of production but also resulted in insecticide residues and insecticide resistance.

Use of biopesticides in pest management is gaining importance recently. Hence studies were conducted in screening nine different plants for toxicity to the S. cerealella. Among them Negundo, Vitex negundo (Linn.) (F: Verbanaceae) is known for insecticidal property and studied in detail. But East Indian Globe Thistle, Sphaeranthus indicus (Linn.) (F: Asteraceae) possess some ethnopharmacological and antimicrobial properties in curing some skin diseases (Ram et al., 2004). It also acts as blood purifier. This is a common wet land weed especially after harvest and comes to flowering and fruiting from March to June (Plate 1) and not studied in detail. Hence fractionation of S. indicus is aimed to identify which fraction has the insecticidal property.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Mass culturing of Angoumois Grain Moth: Paddy variety CR 1009 was used for mass culturing and for conducting various experiments. The mass culturing of S. cerealella was carried out by confining 10 - 20 freshly emerged moths of both sexes in plastic containers of 59 x 21 x 18 cm with 500 g of paddy grains maintained at 28 ± 2° C (Heinrichs et al., 1985). The freshly emerged moths were used for various experiments.

Extraction Procedure, Percentage Infestation and Percentage weight loss: All plant materials were shade dried and extracted with hot water @ 50 g / 1 lit so as to get five percent extract (Sighamony et al., 1990). After cooling, 75 ml of extract is mixed with 100 g of paddy grains and shade dried. Such treated grains were exposed to S. cerealella. adults 1:3 for male and female. In each replication two males and four female moths were confined. Further adult longevity, percent infestation (Mohan and Sundara Babu, 1999), percent weight loss (BIS, 1989) and germination rate (ISTA, 1985) were recorded at 10, 30 and 50 days after treatment.

Fractionation and bioefficacy studies: S. indicus was found to be effective among the different plants and on par with negundo plant. The whole extract was split into several fractions by column chromatography (Dhaliwal et al., 1990).

Two kg of powdered sample was extracted with acetone in various batches, pooled and kept for 72h, and the sample was condensed with rotary vaccum evaporator to expel all the solvent. Then the collected sample devoid of acetone was eluted in silica gel column. The column was first packed with anhydrous sodium sulphate and the silica gel was mixed with charcoal in 1:1 ratio and again filled at the top with anhydrous sodium sulphate in layers. To this the extracted sample was poured and eluted serially with solvents viz., hexane, benzene, chloroform, ethyl acetate, acetonitrile and acetone in the same order. Then each eluted material was again condensed by rotary vaccum evaporator to remove the excess solvent and it was kept in deep freezer for further use in bioefficacy studies.

Each fraction was mixed with grains and the same procedure as described earlier for evaluation of bioefficacy and the data regarding the percentage infestation and percentage loss of weight were observed. Data on percent values were converted into corresponding angular transformation for statistical analysis (Snedecor and Cochran, 1967).

RESULTS
Adult mortality: A fifty percent mortality of both the sexes were seen in the extracts of soap berry, negundo, east indian globe thistle, jamaica mountain sage, dry chillies and curry leaf on the second day. In candle stick extracts the fifty percent mortality of both sexes was recorded on third day. In indigo and crotons the females also showed 50 percent mortality on third day. But in all the extracts the 100 percent mortality of both the sexes were observed on fourth day (Fig. 1 & 2).

The adult mortality distinctly varied in untreated grains where the males and females showed 50 percent mortality on fifth and sixth day. In untreated grains all male and female were alive on 10th and 12th day also.

Percent Infestation: The percentage infestation at 10 DAT showed a significant difference between the plant extract treated (27.6 - 29.6 percent) and untreated paddy grains (50.0 percent) (Table 1).

Soap berry, negundo, east indian globe thistle, jamaica mountain sage, dry chillies and curry leaf were better than indigo, crotons and candle stick both at 30 and 50 DAT. Among them negundo and east indian globe thistle showed a minimum level of infestation (Table 1).

Percent weight loss: The percent weight loss due to damage caused by S. cerealella at 10 DAT indicated that east indian globe thistle showed a minimum of 17.18 percent weight loss which was on par with negundo. Soap berry, jamaica mountain sage, dry chillies and curry leaf were moderately effective. Indigo, crotons and candle stick though showed higher weight loss than other treatments but statistically less than untreated grains (24.14 percent). A similar trend was seen at 30 and 50 DAT. But negundo was superior to other treatments followed by S. indicus (Table 1).

Germination tests: In plant extract treated grains, the germination was between 91.0 - 97.0 percent higher than untreated grains (75 percent) (Table 1) indicating that application of botanicals protected the paddy grains from insect damage.

All the treatments were effective in checking the pest. Among them S. indicus is as effective as that of V. negundo.

Fractionation of the whole extract of S. indicus: Six fractions of global extract of S. indicus were tested against S. cerealella. The percent infestation at 10 DAT was lowest (10.6 percent) in acetone and acetonitrile fractions, but other fractions were superior to untreated grains showing 27.0 percent infestation. Similar observation at 30 DAT also indicated that acetone and acetonitrile fractions showing lowest (12.6 and 13.0%) percent of infestation, whereas the untreated check showed 29.6 percent damage (Table 2).

The percentage weight loss in paddy grains also had a corroborative out come of minimum percent weight loss both at 10 (6.87%) and 30 DAT (7.33%) in acetone and 7.00 and 7.94 percent in acetonitrile respectively, as against 19.61 percent in untreated check (Table 2).

DISCUSSION The effect of plant extracts on S. cerealella clearly indicated that V. negundo and S. indicus having insecticidal property. Similar studies on the insecticidal activity of botanicals against rice weevil Sitophilus oryzae (Linn.) indicated that custard seed and neem seed powder protected the wheat grains (Mishra et al., 1992).

The essential oils of curry leaf, Murraya koenigii against pulse beetle Callosobruchus chinensis (Linn.) showed a contact, ovicidal and fumigant action with a diffusible property at 340 ppm level (Pathak et al., 1997).

In stored maize and paddy the percent grain damage by S. cerealella was reduced using neem leaf and neem kernel (Yadu et al., 2000). The insecticidal property of leaves of V. negundo against storage pests of paddy was reported earlier (Baskaran and Narayanasamy, 1995).

The reduction in percent weight loss by using neem, castor and mauha oil was reported in pulse beetle C. chinensis (Singh et al., 2001). In stored maize and paddy with neem leaves afford protection against S. cerealella (Yadu et al., 2000). At 50 DAT damage in untreated was maximum (60.98 percent) as in similar studies 50.5 percent (Shazali, 1987) and 65 percent (Dakshinamurthy, 1986) and in all the other treatments it ranged from 40 to 43.93 percent.

Use of neem products, leaves of eucalyptus, sarifa and Lantana reduced the percent germination to 71% and 92.02% in maize and paddy against S. cerealella respectively (Yadu et al., 2000). The germination was higher in wheat than in Melia azadirach treated grains for S. oryzae as reported by Singh and Mall (1991).

Acetone and acetonitrile fractions were showed insecticidal activity to S. cerealella. Similarly fractionation of leaves of V. negundo by using ethanol solvent in silica gel column and thin layer column chromatographic technique lead to the isolation of a ketone compound namely "2 - heptatriacontanone". They acted as oviposition inhibitor against the S. cerealella, lesser grain borer Rhizopertha dominica (Fab.) and rice weevil S. oryzae as reported by Prakash et al. (1990). Hence, S. indicus may be a potential green pesticide in future and isolation and identification of the active principle may lead to identify some compounds having insecticidal activity for storage pests.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes thanks to Professor & Head, Department of Agricultural Entomology and the DEAN, PAJANCOA & RI, Karaikal for providing facilities.

REFERENCES

Baskaran, V. and P. Narayanasamy. 1995. Traditional pest control. Caterpillar publications, Mariyappanagar, Tamil Nadu. 99 pp.

BIS. 1989. Storage of food grains. Storage losses by Insects. Methods for estimation. IS 12529 : Bureau of Indian Standards, New Delhi, India. p.3.

Champ, B.R. and C.E. Dyte. 1977. FAO global survey of pesticide susceptibility of stored grain pests. FAO Pl. Prot. Bull., 25 : 49-67.

Dakshinamurthy, A. 1986. Bio Ecology and Management of Sitotroga cerealella (Olivier) on Rice. Ph.D. thesis submitted to Tamil Nadu Agricultural Univ., Coimbatore 175 pp.

Dhaliwal, G.S., M.D. Pathak and C.R. Vega. 1990. Effect of different fractions of stem distillate extracts of a rice variety on Brown plant hopper and striped stem borer. pp.391-394. In: Chari, M.S. and G. Ramaprasad (Eds.) Proc. Symp. Botanical pesticides in IPM, 21-22, Jan. 1990, Rajahmundry, India.

Dutta, B.C. 1984. Efficacy of some chemicals and plant materials as seed protectants against S. oryzae and S. cerealella in stored wheat. M.Sc.(Ag). thesis submitted to Assam Agrl. Univ., Jorhat, Assam.

Heinrichs, E.A., F.G. Medrano and H.R. Rapusas. 1985. Angoumois grain moth. pp. 325-334. In: Genetic Evaluation for Insect Resistance in Rice. International Rice Research Institute, Las Banos, Phillipines.

ISTA. 1985. International rules for Seed testing Seed Sci. and Tech., 13: 299-355.

Mishra, B.K., P.R. Mishra and H.K. Mohapatra. 1992. Studies on some plant product mixtures against Sitophilus oryzae (Linn.) infesting wheat seeds. Indian J. Pl. Prot., 20 : 178-182.

Mohan, S. and P.C. Sundara Babu, 1999. Stored product pests and their management. CPPS, Tamil Nadu Agrl. Univ., 121 pp.

Pathak, N., T.D. Yadav, A.N.Jha and P. Vasudevan. 1997. Content and Fumigant action of volatile essential oil of Murraya koenigii against Callosobruchus chinensis. Indian J. Ent., 59 (2) : 198 - 202.

Prakash, A., P.K. Mahapatra and K.C. Mathur. 1990. Isolation, identification and evaluation of an oviposition inhibitor for storage insect pests from Begunia, Vitex negundo (Linn.) (Verbenaceae). Bull. Grain Tech., 28 (1) : 33 - 52.

Ram, A.J., L.M. Bhakshu and R.R.V. Raju. 2004. In vitro antimicrobial activity of certain medicinal plants from Eastern Ghats, India, used for skin diseases. J. Ethnopharmacology. 90 (2) : 353-357.

Shazali, M.E.M. 1987. Weight loss caused by development of Sitophilus oryzae (Linn.) and Sitotroga cerealella (Oliv.) in sorghum grains of two size classes. J. Stored Prod. Res., 23 (4) : 223-238.

Sighamony, S., I. Anees, T.S. Chandrakala and K. Jamil. 1990. Control of insect pests of stored grains using Black Pepper seed extracts Piper nigrum. Bull. Grain Tech., 28 (3) : 265 - 266.

Singh, R., B. Singh and R.A. Verma. 2001. Efficacy of different indigenous plant products as grain protectant against Callosobruchus chinensis (Linn..) on pea. Indian J. Ent., 63 (2) : 179 - 181.

Singh, Y.P., and N.P. Mall. 1991. Effect of various grain protectants on germination and damage of wheat grains by Sitophilus oryzae (Linn.) Bull. Grain Tech., 29 (1) : 50 - 54.

Snedecor, G.W. and W.G. Cochran. 1967. Statistical methods. Oxford and IBH publishing Co., New Delhi, India. 593 pp.

Yadu, Y.K., R.C. Saxena, V.K. Dubey and D.K. Rana, 2000. Evaluation of certain plant products against S. cerealella (Oliv.) in stored maize and paddy. Indian J. Agric. Res., 34 (4): 261-263.

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