RSA 1, a Good Alternative Botanical Insecticide

The demand of vegetable products is continuously increase. Therefore, the efforts to increase vegetable production to meet consumer demand is necessary. However, this effort is often faced with very difficult obstacles such as the attack of pest and plant pathogen. To solve this problem, the majority of producers or farmers choose synthetic pesticides for controlling pest and pathogen to get optimal yields and effective control results. In the meantime, consumers want a safe agricultural products consumption, free pesticide residue and safe for the environment. Solution that can be offered to this problem is to use botanical pesticide which is considered relatively safe for humans and the environment because it is easy to decompose (biodegradable). Many researches of botanical insecticide have been done. Plants that have been proven to be used as an insecticide ingredient are long pepper (Piper retrofractum Vahl., Piperaceae) and sugar apple (Annona squamosa L., Anonaceae). Both plants have been proven effective to control several pest insect species. Mixture between both extract effective for controlling Crocidolomia pavonana (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) with 100% mortality at concentration of 0.1%. Therefore, this research was conducted to determine other target pests of mixture these two extracts named RSA1 formulation. RSA1 formulation is a mixture of long pepper and sugar apple extract with 2:1 ratio of mixed solvent and adjuvant.
The research consisted of four tests, formulation RSA1 against Spodoptera litura (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), Maruca testulalis (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), Helicoverpa armigera (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) and C. pavonana arranged in complete randomized design. The results showed that the formulation of RSA1 was effective to control C. pavonana with mortality rate of 100% at concentration of 0.2% at 48 hours after treatment (HAT). S. litura mortality reached 30% at concentration of 0.2% and 26,7% at 0.1% concentration by residual effect method, while with topical application method the mortality of larvae only reached 20% at concentration of 0.2% and 13.3% at concentration of 0.1% to 72 HAT. Mortality of H. armigera reached 66.7% at concentration of 0.2% and 60% at concentration of 0.1% with residual effect method, while with topical application method the larvae only reached 6.7% at concentration of 0.2% and 3.3% at concentration of 0.1% at 72 HAT. Mortality of M. testulalis reached 70% at concentration of 0.2% and 50% at concentration of 0.1% in 72 HAT. Nevertheless, the results of testing for H. armigera with residual effect method and the results of testing of M. testulalis considered good enough because its effectiveness is almost close to 80% and is expected to reduce damage to the plants. When applied in the field, differences and diversity of test results obtained is probably due to several factors such as the test material storage time, type of test materials and factors in the test insects.