Optimization of insecticides extracted from neem leaves on Nilaparvata lugens, brown planthopper

Nilaparvata lugens, brown planthopper is a major threat to rice crops throughout Asia. It attacks rice plant by sucking the plant sap of the leaf blades and leaf sheaths, which resulted the plant to be yellowish, dry and damaging them. Several natural insecticides have been used to control its population. Among them, neem leaves has been found effectively good as a natural insecticide in controlling the outbreaks of N. lugens due to the presence of bioactive compound namely Azadirachtin (AZA). However, the optimized condition of neem extract to be applied as an effective insecticide against N.lugens is undiscovered. In this study, three factors were discovered namely neem extract concentration, exposure time and temperature against mortality of N.lugens. Besides that, the study also included the effect of neem extract in terms of contact toxicity, repellency of rice plants as well as the effect on the body of N. lugens. From the optimization studies, 100% of N. lugens were died after exposure to 40% of neem extract, for 72 hours at 30oC. The results showed that neem extract can be an effective insecticide to prevent the outbreaks of N. lugens