Efficacy of Different Plant Extracts and Insecticide on Red Flour Beetle, Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) in Wheat, Triticum aestivum

The studies on the efficacy of different plant extracts and insecticide on Red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) in Wheat, Triticum aestivum were carried out to know the impact of above plant extracts on percent mortality and percent weight loss. The research was carried out at Department of Entomology SHUATS, Prayagraj from September to December in 2022-2023.This experiment was conducted under Complete Randomized Design (CRD).The experiment was conducted on the effect of plant extracts and insecticide on the mortality of adult Tribolium castaneum at 5,10 and 15 days of exposure. The treatments included Neem leaf powder (5 g/100 g), Tulsi leaf powder (1.5 g/100 g), Eucalyptus leaf powder (1.5 g/100 g), Turmeric powder (10g/100 g), Ginger rhizome powder (5 g/100 g), Garlic powder (5 g/100 g), and also included chemical as check Chlorpyriphos 48 EC (2%/100 g). Among the treatments with botanicals the largest number of mortality was observed in Neem leaf powder (65.55%) followed by Eucalyptus leaf powder (55.55%) and least mortality was observed in the turmeric treatment (20%). Experiments conducted on weight loss of wheat grains at 30,60 and 90 days revealed that the maximum weight loss was occurred in turmeric treatment (1.2%) followed by ginger rhizome powder (0.85%) and minimum is recorded in neem leaf powder (0.34%).Therefore, the present laboratory studies clearly showed the efficacy of different plant extracts on red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum(Herbst) were almost effective when compared with chlorpyriphos (Insecticide). Hence it may be concluded that these plant extracts are eco-Friendly, cost effective and easily available. It can easily incorporated to the management of Tribolium castaneum in wheat.