Carica papaya aqueous leaf extracts as potential botanical insecticide against rose aphids (Macrosiphum rosaeformis D.)

Abstract

Current study elucidates the feasibility of the use of Carica papaya plant leaf aqueous (AQ) extracts for the control of economically serious pest Macrosiphum rosaeformis, rose aphids. Lethal concentrations obtained were 3.39 and 0.06 g/ml at 24, 48 and 72 hr treatment. The residual bioassays indicated that the papaya leaf extract was effective till 11DAT at 24hr and had significantly higher mortality than control. Further, at 48 hr it was effective till 13DAT and had significantly higher mortality than control. Spectrophotometric estimation of flavonoids in papaya revealed higher concentration in the aqueous leaf extracts of papaya (61.24 g/ml) than in the Soxhlet MeOH extract (20.85 g/ml). The observations will be helpful in developing an IPM module with possible use of these plant extracts in ornamental greenhouse crops. This study for the first time reported the toxic effect of papaya leaf aqueous extract on rose aphids.