Abstract:
Ticks are one of the most significant factors of global veterinary importance and regarded as the most important vectors of livestock parasites causing significant economic losses. The commonly available synthetic aacaricides rapidly degrade after application yet have a long residual effect on the environment, are expensive and not locally readily available to local farmers.
This experimental study was motivated by the need to develop a complementary and alternative cheap but effective and safe plant-derived acaricide for use in the control of ticks and tick-borne diseases. The study was specifically aimed at determining the mortality rate of Ixodidae ticks when exposed to the Azadirachta indica leaf extract under different concentrations to identify the concentration that causes the highest mortality rate.
Trials were conducted in the Busitema University Arapai campus laboratory for a period of 72 hours in the month of October with treatments of Azadirachta indica leaf extract at concentrations of 20%, 10% and 5%, positive control was cypermethrin and a negative control was distilled water to test their acaricidal efficiency. Concentrations of the extract had significant differences in acaricidal efficacy with P value <0.0001 (alpha 0.05). 20% and 10% concentrations causing the highest tick mortality rate of 90% and 75% respectively with no significant difference (P value 0.5846) while 5% concentration of extract showed efficacy of 55% not significantly different from the positive control (cypermethrin) with 70% efficacy; Distilled water had no effect mortalities recorded.
Azadirachta indica leaf extract has acaricidal properties for control of Ixodidae and environmentally friendly thus a viable option for tick control.
