Active components of essential oils as acaricides against Dermanyssus gallinae

ABSTRACT

1. The aim was to evaluate the acaricidal effects of pure active components of essential oils against poultry red mite (Dermanyssus gallinae) as an alternative to chemical acaricides (organophosphates and pyrethroids).

2. The toxicities of five pure active components of essential oils (eugenol from clove bud, eucalyptol from rosemary, limonene from citrus fruits, linalool from lavender and cinnamaldehyde from cinnamon) were tested on D. gallinae females in an impregnated paper assay.

3. The active substances were dissolved in water and Tween 20 and applied at concentrations ranging from 0.002 to 0.06 µl/cm². Toxicity was expressed as a lethal dose (LD₅₀ or LD₉₀).

4. The highest mortality was observed with eugenol. The LD₉₀ was estimated to be 5.1 µg/cm² for this substance, followed by cinnamaldehyde, the LD₉₀ of which was estimated to be 11.0 µg/cm². Limonene and eucalyptol were generally less effective in controlling D. gallinae.

KEYWORDS:

• Cinnamaldehyde
• eucalyptol
• eugenol
• limonene
• linalool
• Poultry red mite elimination

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by grant no. AF-IGA-IP-2018/011 (Iva Radsetoulalova, Martina Lichovnikova, David Hampel) and by the project RO0418 by the Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic (Jan Hubert).