Nelson E. Masota¹, Matobola Mihale^2,, Joseph Sempombe¹, Leonia Henry³, Veronica Mugoyela¹, Fortunatus Sung'hwa⁴

The toxicity, antifeedant activity and repellency of the crude methanol extract of the wild mushroom Amanita muscaria on Sitophilus zeamais in stored maize grains was determined by assessments, carried out between the extracts concentration of 0.05 and 0.5% w/w. Nontreated and treated grains with 2% Actellic gold ^TM 2% dust (0.05% w/w) were used as negative and positive controls, respectively. Three replicates were made for each treatment and experiments were conducted in a completely randomized design. The methanol extract at 0.5% w/w concentration showed highest toxicity 21 days after treatment killing 61.7% of the pest. Interestingly, 68.6% inhibition of F1 progeny was observed at 0.5% w/w 42 days after treatment whereas the reduction in grain damage was up to 86.0% compared to the negative control. The extract demonstrated a pest repellency of up to 96.7% after 24 hours of exposure. The findings were promising for use of A. muscaria as a biopesticide for maize grains storage towards supporting the ongoing IPM strategies. The study provides a baseline data that needs to be complimented by doing more research on the active compounds in the mushroom as well as improving the synthetic industry based on the fact that most of the species are endemic.

pesticidal activity, Amanita muscaria, maize grains, Sitophilus zeamais, grain damage, Tanzania