Antifeedant activity of plant extracts to an insect Helopeltis theivora

 

A.K. Dolui and M. Debnath*

 

Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Dibrugarh University, Dibrugarh - 786 004, India

(Received: May 15, 2009; Revised received: September 11, 2009; Accepted: September 25, 2009)

 

Abstract: The different solvent extracts (viz Petroleum ether, Ethyl acetate and Methanol) obtained from leaves and flowers of Heliotropium indicum and Spilanthes calva were screened for antifeedant activity against Helopeltis theivora. All the six different extracts showed antifeedant activity at four different concentrations. The methanolic extracts of leaves of Heliotropium indicum and Spilanthes calva exhibited significant activity at 4% concentration. The numbers of spots produced were only 18.67 and 22.67 respectively, which are significantly less than the number of spots produced in control (104.00 and 93.33 respectively). The treatment with methanolic extracts of flowers of both the plants significantly reduced the number of feeding spots to 22.33 and 23.67 respectively in comparison to the control values of 101.33. All the activities are dose dependent. The mean results with SEM (mean?SE) were statistically significant at 1% level (p<0.01) for three observations.

Key words: Antifeedant activity, Heliotropium indicum, Spilanthes calva, Helopeltis theivora, Methanolic extract

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