Comparative repellency study of novel insect repellent cloth bags treated with the plant extracts against Tribolium castaneum

Abstract

Red flour beetle (Tribolium castaneum) is a globally serious stored pest that invades the grains through small openings available in the packaging material. Among the novel methods to manage this pest is the development of insect repellent cloth bag. In the current research, the cloth bags treated with Malathion, aqueous extract of papaya leaves and garlic bulbs were checked for its efficacy against the adults of Tribolium species. In the olfactometer, sachets coated with the aqueous extract of papaya leaves showed the most repellent behaviour (92.5%). This result is followed by garlic bulb showing repellent behaviour comparative to Malathion (90%). In the insect management unit, the readings were taken at 2, 8 and 24 hours of treatment at a constant concentration of 26ml/544cm2 (i.e. 0.05ml/cm2). All of the treatments gave comparatively relevant repellency (>70 %) when compared with Malathion in the insect management unit. However, the cloth bag treated with the aqueous extract of garlic bulb showed reasonable results of 76–83 per cent repellency against T. castaneum when compared with malathion (73-87%).