Using Plants To Control Pests

Fruit farmer Mrs Farzana Panhwar, based near Hyderabad, Pakistan, has written to
farmingsolutions detailing successful integrated pest management solutions she now
uses on her 100-acre (42 hectare) fruit orchard.

“There are numerous fruit and vegetable crops with properties that with proper
attention I can use to control insects and diseases.

The plants that I have listed below have pesticide properties in their seeds,
leaves, stalks, un-ripe fruit, bulbs rhizomes etc., and act by different modes of
action. Each one controls different pests including: aphids, caterpillars, green
bugs, fruit flies, leaf minors, red spiders, ants, slugs, house flies, mites,
white flies, bacteria, scab, bowl-worm, thrips, anthracnose, hoppers, scales,
termites, thrips, mosaic virus, powder mildew etc.

The useful part of a plant can easily be collected and used as a natural pesticide
on a crop and can of course be established on a small scale in rural areas near
farms. Fruit and vegetables with natural pesticide properties include: custard
apple (Annona reticulata), basil (Sweet Basil) and Holy Basil, chillies (Capsicum
frutes), (Fam. Sollanacea), garlic (Allium Sativum) (F. Lilacae), ginger (Zingber
officiate) (fm. Zingiberatase), neem, papaya (Carcia papaya), tobacco (Nictana
tabacum, Nicotana, Rustica) and nicotana glutnosa (Fam. Ziberacease).

Insect-controlling plants

Pest control plants should posses the following characteristics:

Be effective at the rate of a maximum of 3-5% plant material based on dry weight
Be easy to grow, require little space and time for cultivation and procurement
Be perennial, recover quickly after the material is harvested
Not become weed or a host to plant pathogen or insect pest
Possess complementary economic uses
Pose no hazard to non-target organisms, wild life, humans or environment
Be easy to harvest preparation should be simple, not too time consuming or
requiring excessive technical input
Application should not be phyto-toxic or decrease the quality of crop, e.g. taste
or texture
Below is a list of useful agricultural species, their pesticide properties and the
method of preparation:

Soursop Custard apple (Annona reticulata)

Plant parts with insect controlling properties: seeds, leaves, unripe fruit
Mode of action: Contact and stomach problem, ovicidal, insecticidal, repellent,
antifeedent and antinematode.
Target pests: aphid, caterpillars, green bug and Mediterranean fruit fly.
Preparation: 500 grams of custard apple leaves, boil in 2 ½ litres of water, until
only 1/4 of the original is left, then dilute this mixture into 15-20 litres of
water. This is good enough for one hectare.

Basil Sweet Basil (Ocimum basilium), Holy Basil (Ocimum Sanctum)

Plant parts with insect controlling properties: leaves and stem
Mode of action: repellent, insecticidal, fungitoxic and mollu scicidol.
Target pests: fruit fly, leaf miners, red spider and mites.
Preparation: 100g basil leaves dipped in to 1 litre of water. This should be
soaked overnight in water. Filter the mixture and add 1ml of liquid soap, stir
properly. Dilute into 10-15 litres of water.

Chillies
Plant parts with insect controlling properties: fruit
Mode of action: stomach position insecticidal, repellent, antifeedent, fumigant-
viroid.
Target pests: ants, aphid, caterpillars and slugs.
Preparation: 500g of chillies, dip into 3 litres of water for 10-15 minutes. Add
30g of soap as sticker. Add 3 more litres of water, filter and then spray the
plants. One can add tobacco, garlic, onion, citrus, alcohol, neem and lime.

Garlic Allium Sativum (Fam. Lilaceqe)

Plant parts with insect controlling properties: bulbs
Mode of action: insecticidal, repellent, antifeedent, fungicidalnematocidal and is
effective against ticks.
Target pest: aphids, house flies, mites, white fly, bacteria, cucumber and scab.
Preparation: 3 bulbs of garlic, ground finely, add some kerosene, keep for 2 days.
Add 1 table-spoon of soap powder, stir and filter and add 15-20 litres of water.

Ginger Zingiber officiale (Fam. Zingiberacae)

Plant parts with insect controlling properties: rhizome
Mode of action: repellent, insecticidal, nematocidal and fungicidal.
Target pests: American bowl worms, aphid, thrips, white fly, and mango
anthracnose.
Preparation: 500g of crushed garlic add 10ml of kerosene oil kept overnight. Next
day remove outer skin of ginger and make ginger paste. In another vessel add 100g
green chillies, mixed with 50ml of water and add 30g of liquid soap as emulsifier.
Solution is stirred and filtered and 10-15 ml of water added.

Neem.
Plant parts with insect controlling properties: seeds and leaves
Mode of action: insecticidal, repellent, antifeedant acaricidal, growth inhibiting
nematocidal, fungicidal, anti-viral. Neem compounds act mainly as stomach poison
and systemic.
Target pests: American boll-worms, ants, deserts, locust, leaf hoppers, leaf
miners, mites, scales, termites, thrips, white fly.
Preparation: 1 kg of neem leaves dipped into 2 litres of water and left overnight.
Boil it 15-20 minutes untill 1/4 is left. Dilute with 10-15ml of water.

Papaya Carcia papaya

Plant parts with insect controlling properties: leaves, seed, unripe fruit
Mode of action: flower thrips and fruit fly.
Target pests: mosaic virus and powdery mildew.
Preparation: 1 kg of finely shredded leaves, placed in 1 litre of water and
squeezed through a cloth. Take 1 litre of soap solution, dilute it in 10-15 ml
water.

Tobacco Nicotana tabacum, Nicotana Rustica, Nicotana glutnosa, and Fam. Solanaceae

Plant parts with insect controlling properties: leaves and stalk

Mode of action: insecticida, repellent, fungicidal, acaricidal contact, and
stomach.
Target pests: aphids, caterpillars, leaf miners, mites and thrips.
Preparation: boil 4 litres of water, add ½ kg of tobacco leaves and 1 table spoon
of lime. Dilute it with 10-15 litres of water.
Tumeric Curcum domstica (Fam. Zigiberaceoe)
Plant parts with insect controlling propertie: rhizome
Mode of action: repellent, insecticidal and antifungal.
Target pests: aphids, caterpillars, mites and rice leaf hoppers.
Preparation: 500g of turmeric rhizomes chopped and soaked overnight, dilute into 2
litres of water and again dilute into another 10-15ml of water.

The Rationale
The purpose of introducing pesticide free fruits and vegetables is to increase the
support and significance of natural crop protection and sustainable organic
agriculture. It provides links with approaches and methodologies that allow
growers to put basic information into practice. Ultimately this will provide
farmers with the experience and confidence needed to make the best use of the
resource available to them and to use this knowledge to farm sustainably.

Commercial scale applications

The plant species listed in this article are grown in Pakistan in abundance but
have never been tried on a commercial scale. Even neem that is known to control
numerous insects, pests, fungi, nematodes and viral diseases is still used and
processed in a very primitive manner. A solution has to be found for its
commercial scale applications and extraction of pesticide properties of plants on
a much larger scale. One solution would be for the market price to be guaranteed
by the government so that the private sector can achieve results easily.

Information deficiency
There is demand world over for pesticide free food, but the information on the
various natural pesticides is lacking and therefore, these methods are little used
in Pakistan and other developing countries. This is partly due to the fact that
processing techniques have not been fully understood. The process of extraction is
known theoretically, but large scale production has not yet made any headway,
although there is great scope for export opportunities.

Nurturing success
In order to produce fruit and vegetables using sustainable locally produced inputs
we need to identify constraints of crop production. We also need to develop an
appropriate training course on Integrated Pest Management for the target
smallholders farming system. Ultimately this strategy will help to boost our
economy through the increased export of high value ‘non toxic’ food produce.

Contributed by: Mrs Farzana Panhwar

Email:farzanapanhwar@hotmail.com

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