Abstract: Harvester ants (Messor galla) are very active pest which carry away small grains from store, and they also remove planted seed from planting holes thereby causing poor seedling establishment, therefore seed are dressed by chemical pesticides before planting. The seed dressing chemicals are not available resources of poor farmers, so after seedling establishment they continue to supply missing stands leading to staggered planting. This unavailability has led to the search for alternative seed dressing agent that will be readily available and cheap for the use of the resource poor farmers. The research was conducted in university of Maiduguri. The effectiveness of the neem formulation as seed dressing agents against harvester ants (Messor galla forel) was investigated using field experiment. Treatment agent used are neem seed powder, neem seed oil, neem seed aqueous extract and apronstar 42 WS. Among the various treatment agent used, the result indicated that neem seed oil is the most effective treatment agent. The result in general indicated that neem seed oil formulations is better than apronstar 42 WS which is one of recommended seeds dressing chemicals. The result of the toxicity test also indicated that neem seed oil is very toxic to harvester ants, next to it is the apronstar 42 WS. Neem seed powder and neem seed aqueous extract are less effective than neem seed oil and apronstar in terms of toxicity.
Keywords: Messor galla, Apron star 42 WS, Neem, Seeds, seed dressing agents.
Title: Comparative Study of Azadirachta Indica and Apronster42WS as Seed Dressing Agents against Messor Galla in Borno State, Nigeria
Author: Jacob Sule Ngwamah, Rebecca S. Naphtali Shitta, Kefas Babale
International Journal of Life Sciences Research
ISSN 2348-313X (Print), ISSN 2348-3148 (online)
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