engleski

Non-chemical Control of Slugs in Lettuce Using Plant Extracts

Vegetable suffer a great damages caused by slugs. In Croatia slug Arion lusitanicus Mabille, 1868 has become the most frequent species, which is very hard to control. Current control methods rely on molluscicides that are often ineffective and harmful to non-target organisms. In order to evaluate the efficacy of some non-chemical treatments based on plant extracts of rosemary, lavender, garlic and caffeine, laboratory experiment was conducted in February 2014. Plant extracts were prepared by using 1 l of boiling water poured on rosemary (100 g of dry rosemary), lavender (5 g of lavender oil), garlic (70 g fresh clove of garlic) and coffee (100 g of roasted coffe). Plant extracts mixtures were left 24 hours in a covered pot and were applied to lettuce leaves using hand sprayer next day. There were four replicates per plant extracts treatments and control. Specimens of A. lusitanicus were fed on treated lettuce leaves in flower pots for seven days. Food consumption (leaf damage in cm2) was measured daily and data were subjected to ANOVA and Duncan's MRT (P=0.05). All plant extracts treatments were significantly different from the control from the first day onwards. On the first day after treatment feeding was not recorded on the coffee treatment. The effectiveness of coffee decreased by time. At the end of the experiment there was no significant difference between plant extract treatments. Because the tolerance level to slug damages in lettuce market is effectively zero, these results indicate the need for integrated control of slugs.

Croatia; Lettuce; Plant extracts. Slugs

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