Screening for insecticidal toxicity of Urginea maritima (L.) bulbs and Asphodelus microcarpus (L.) tubers for the control of Tribolium castaneum (Tenebrionidae)

ABSTRACT

This research was conducted to determine the effect of geographical distribution on morphological characteristics of plants and some chemical compounds such as polyphenols. Moreover, we explore the contact toxicity of ethanolic and methanolic extracts from Urginea maritima bulbs and Asphodelus microcarpus tubers collected from three localities in the North West of Tunisia against Tribolium castaneum adults. The toxicity results demonstrated that both of the studied plant extracts had an effective control against T. castaneum at concentration 7.5 µL/L air, thus total mortality reached. In addition, results showed plant extracts with methanol exhibited high mortality percentage of T. castaneum.   On the other hand, results revealed that chemical composition of U. maritime bulbs and A. microcarpus tuber extract depends on the soil components and geographical distribution of plants. The present investigation confirmed that A. microcarpus and U. maritima may be recommended as an eco-friendly alternative to synthetic insecticide against T. castaneum.

KEYWORDS:

• Urginea maritima
• Asphodelus microcarpus
• Tribolium castaneum
• extracts
• bio-pesticides

Acknowledgments

Authors are thankful to the Ministry of Agriculture of Tunisia for providing arboreta, and other facilities. This work was supported by funds from Laboratory of Biotechnology Applied to Agriculture, INRAT code LR11INRAT06 (Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research of Tunisia).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Funding

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