Galanthamine hydrobromide is a good compound for positive control, but it is very expensive, which other compounds can be used as positive assay against the flour beetle Tribolium castaneum?
in many papers DEET is used as repellent, could be used also as insecticide?
please provide me a reference
The simple answer is any commercial insecticide will work. However, ....
1) are you looking for ingested, contact, or fumigant?
2) are you looking for acute or chronic effects?
3) are you looking at residual activity or direct action?
4) are there economic issues? If so, then you might be restricted to a commercial insecticide that is registered for control of this pest in your country. If the product is to be shipped elsewhere, then your options are restricted by the allowable pesticides in the country the grain is shipped to.
Try:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0022474X9290035O
http://www.bulletinofinsectology.org/pdfarticles/vol63-2010-251-258rossi.pdf
I found these, and others using google and typing in insecticide and tribolium.
Dear Prof Timothy
Thank you for the suggested papers they are very helpful.
Conduct a preliminary experiment with several chosen insecticides, cheaper and available in your country. Then, you can find on your own, from the percentage mortality values.
Are expensive insecticide products the best approach to stored grain insects? Why not smoke them to death with the fumes of burning sulfur, or with CO2, maybe just plain smoke, say, filtered engine exhaust (avoiding lead or cadmium in the fuel of course)?
As to a control, always use whatever is currently most used in your country. Maybe ask a county agent (regional farm advisor), if you have such.
Smoking them to death or using CO2 will only test that the insects are capable of dying.
The positive control tell us that your experiment should have worked. If the positive control does not kill the insects then: insects are resistant, chemicals were not mixed properly, products were not applied properly, assessment intervals were inappropriate, products were old, or some other problems exist and we should be suspicious of all the results. The positive control needs to be similar in application to the other products being tested. I do not see a purpose in testing a contact insecticide with a fumigant control.
It is valid to compare a fumigant treatment against a contact insecticide treatment, and if one of these treatments is also the current gold standard for managing the pest then you effectively are using it as both a treatment and a positive control. However, you could be skilled at applying a fumigant and bad at applying the contact insecticide. So you might want another control.
All that said, in field work one typically has a treatment that is the gold standard for managing your pest. One does not typically think of this treatment as a positive control.
Timothy A Ebert is correct because my answer about fumigating is not a direct answer to the question. However, I question the using of contact insecticides mixed with your stored product, especially when they are likely to cost more than the fumigation. Sorry, but I am a little rude to imply that I am asking if the researcher, Ammar Bader, who's other work is quite important, really wants to consider whether he is spending his time (time is our very lives) doing an experiment which might not really reward the industry.
And, I did say, "As to a control, always use whatever is currently most used in your country". Also an applied entomologist has to balance cost against return, so toxicological effectiveness of a new insecticide, if he proceeds, will have to be weighed against any increase (or scaled up up for decrease) in cost.
@Lewis,
There are a number of products that can be applied to the grain. http://spiru.cgahr.ksu.edu/proj/iwcspp/pdf2/9/6280.pdf
It would also be possible to treat the storage container. Other options would include pheromone traps, or cultural controls like heating the grain.
Given that a professor in pharmacy is taking on an applied entomology project, I can see a large number of potential problems starting with maintaining a colony of insects for testing. The first few weeks are easy. Is this a small project for fun and personal edification, an industry grant, or for publication in Science? I could even see this as a great science fair project for a student (grade school through undergraduate level). So this might not even be Ammar's project, and he is simply trying to help.
I agree with Timothy about the possible reason why a professor would ask such a question. It would be a great training exercise for a student. If working with a moderately easy to maintain insect is necessary, Tribolium castaneum is an ideal model organism. Such a project would give the researcher a feeling for the setup and analysis of a toxicology assay without having to use a more difficult organism. Thanks to Timothy for the reply.
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