Pesticide Activity Improvement of Azadirachtin for Pests Control in Zambia

International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI) | Volume VIII, Issue IV, April 2021 | ISSN 2321–2705

Pesticide Activity Improvement of Azadirachtin for Pests Control in Zambia

 Chibika Jacoba¹, Maseka Kakoma^2
1School of Mathematics and Natural Science, Copperbelt University, Kitwe, Zambia
²Chemistry Department, Copperbelt University, Kitwe, Zambia

Abstract: Agriculture has proven to be one of the major economic drivers of any country’s economy. Most developing countries have been failing to grow their economies through agriculture due to a number of problems; one of these problems is attributed to the damage pests cause on the crops. Examples of pests being tutaabsoluta and army worms which affect tomato and maize crops, respectively. Botanical pesticides have proved to be an effective method of protecting crops as they are cheaply sourced and their pesticide efficacy can be improved.The efficacy of an improved/ modified pesticide of azadirachtin was determined in comparison with its original form on two different types of pests; viz., on army worms and tutaabsoluta. This was achieved by spraying army worms and tutaabsoluta with four solutions of azadirachtin obtained from the commercial source, extracted one, modified commercial one and modified extracted one. Modification of azadirachtin was done by replacing ester groups with amide groups. Unmodified commercial azadirachtin gave mortalities of 00.0% and 28.6% on army worms and tutaabsoluta respectively while its modified form gave mortalities of 28.6% and 42.9% on army worms and tutaabsoluta, respectively. Unmodified extacted azadirachtin gave mortalities of 28.6% on both army worms and tutaabsoluta while its modified form gave 85.7% and 100 % mortalities on armyworms and tutaabsoluta respectively. Botanical pesticides are a potential remedy to a lot of crop pests in our country and their efficacy can be made better by structural modifications.

Keywords: Azadirachtin, Aniline, TutaAbsoluta, Army worm.

I. INTRODUCTION

Agriculture has proved to be one of the major drivers of a country’s economy. In Zambia for instance the dependence on copper and other minerals has proved to be a failed idea as the exported mineral products at times fetch low prices. This is attributed to a lot of factors which include failure by the London Metal Exchange whose mandate is to determine the price of the country’s copper. According to York (2015) the economy for Zambia tumbled in the recent past due to declining prices of copper at the international market.
As a result of such draw backs, the government of the republic has made tremendous strides in moving its economy from a copper dependency economy to an agriculture dependency economy

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