Chemical characterization and evaluation of acaricidal potential of rosemary essential oil and its main compound α-pinene on the two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae

Abstract

Two-spotted spider mite causes significant damage to various crops, often requiring synthetic acaricides for their control. However, the frequent use of these products causes several environmental problems. Thus, this work aimed to evaluate the acaricidal action, using the application by fumigation on female adults of Tetranychus urticae of essential oil from the leaves of Rosmarinus officinalis L., and its major compound, α-pinene. In addition, the essential oil was characterized by gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. α-pinene was the compound with the highest relative area in the oil (29.2%). In fumigation tests, α-pinene showed more significant toxicity than rosemary essential oil on two-spotted spider mite females with LC₅₀ and LC₉₀ values of 1.58 and 49.61 µL/L air, showing the impact of the chemical composition of the essential oil on the biological activity.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Secondary metabolites
• Rosmarinus officinalis
• chromatographic profile
• two-spotted spider mite

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.