Effectiveness of locally available botanical extracts against sucking cotton insect pest in Tanzania

Abstract

Cotton Production in Tanzania faces significant from sucking insect pests such as Aphids gossypii, Amrasca bigutula, Thrips tabaci and Bemisia tabaci. The quest to minimize adverse environmental effects of synthetic insecticides and to improve cotton yield led to search for eco-friendly botanical insecticides. Studies were conducted in Misungwi, Mwanza region from November 2021 to May 2022 and repeated in November 2022 to May 2023 to evaluate the efficacy of locally available botanicals against sucking cotton pests. A split plot in a Randomized Complete Block Design was deployed with five treatments; synthetic insecticide (Mostrong), Azadirachta indica, Solanum incunum, Citrus Limon and a non-sprayed treatment as negative control replicated three times. Data were collected on different insect pests prior and after insecticides application then subjected to GenSTAT for normality tests, ANOVA and means separation test by Tukey’s post hoc Honestly Significance (P0.05) different between botanical extracts and synthetic insecticides. Botanical extracts significantly (p