Pesticide Activity Improvement of Azadirachtin for Pests Control in Zambia

Agriculture has proven to be one of the major economic drivers of any country’s economy. Most developing countries have been failing to grow their economies through agriculture due to a number of problems; one of these problems is attributed to the damage pests cause on the crops. Examples of pests being tutaabsoluta and army worms which affect tomato and maize crops, respectively. Botanical pesticides have proved to be an effective method of protecting crops as they are cheaply sourced and their pesticide efficacy can be improved.The efficacy of an improved/ modified pesticide of azadirachtin was determined in comparison with its original form on two different types of pests; viz., on army worms and tutaabsoluta. This was achieved by spraying army worms and tutaabsoluta with four solutions of azadirachtin obtained from the commercial source, extracted one, modified commercial one and modified extracted one. Modification of azadirachtin was done by replacing ester groups with amide groups. Unmodified commercial azadirachtin gave mortalities of 00.0% and 28.6% on army worms and tutaabsoluta respectively while its modified form gave mortalities of 28.6% and 42.9% on army worms and tutaabsoluta, respectively. Unmodified extacted azadirachtin gave mortalities of 28.6% on both army worms and tutaabsoluta while its modified form gave 85.7% and 100 % mortalities on armyworms and tutaabsoluta respectively. Botanical pesticides are a potential remedy to a lot of crop pests in our country and their efficacy can be made better by structural modifications.