Efficacy of Various Botanicals against Maize Weevil (Sitophilus Zeamays) in Laboratory Condition

Abstract— Maize weevil, Sitophilus zeamays (Motschulsky) is one of most important economic pest that causes severe economic damage to store grain and its management at the farmers level is must. To determine the efficacy of different botanicals against maize weevils in stored maize a study was carried out at the laboratory of IAAS, Lamjung Campus at room temperature from January to April. Nine treatments were laid out in Completely Randomized Design with four replications. Number of infected seeds, dead weevils, number of exit holes and live weevils were recorded at every 30 days intervals till four months . Analysis of variance showed significant effect of all botanicals on weevil mortality compared to untreated check, but not as effective as liquid extracts as Cinnamomum (9.75), citronella (9.75), mentha (9) and lemon grass (9) were significantly more effective than the rest botanicals (P <0.05). Upto 90 days statically lower numbers of infected seeds were seen at Cinnamomum, Mentha, Lemon grass, Titepati, and Citronella while on 120th day Cinnamomum showed best results. Among all treatments, Cinnamomum oil was found to be better on every parameter thus can solve poor farmer's problems by integrating them with other cultural measures. However further research are needed to fix the rate graph and the long term effect in large stores of farmers conditions.