ABSTRACT

Manyphytochemicals have been used to manage the economically important insect pest.One of the most promising phytochemicals is azadirachtin, a bioactive principleof Azadirachta indica.  This key ingredient is present in theleaves, stem, fruit, flower, and bark of the neem tree. There is numerousresearch work that has been done against insect pests using azadirachtin as apesticide. So far no work has been done by using unripe neem fruit milk againstinsect pests. In this work, unripe neem fruit milk is used as the toxicant atdifferent concentrations (0.1, 0.2, 0.4, and 0.8%) against Dysdercuskoenigii fourth nymphal instars, Spodoptera litura thirdstadium larvae, Helicoverpa armigera third stadium larvae, Aulacophorafoveicollis adults, Sphenarches caffer larvae, and Dysdercuskoenigii eggs. From this study, the result reveals that unripe fruitof neem milk at 0.8% is highly effective against S. litura third-stadiumlarvae (100±0.00%) and A. foveicollis adults (100±0.00%), followed by D. koenigii fourthnymphal instars (91.67±8.33%); S. caffer larvae (68.75±11.97%) at 96 hours; and thetoxicant is least effective against H. armigera third-stadiumlarvae (12.00±4.89). The ovicidal activity is effective at 0.8% against D. koenigii eggs at72 and 96 hrs. The test material also caused morphological deformities, andhence we suggest utilizing unripe neem fruit milk as a pesticidal material.

Key words: Unripe neem fruit milk,toxicant, leaf dip method, Insect pests, LCs