Avaliação do controle de insetos com óleos essenciais na pós-colheita de Heliconia bihai (L.) L. (Heliconiaceae)

Abstract

The flowers and tropical ornamental plants segment are increasing in agribusiness all over the world. Following this trend, the sector has been expanding in Brazil too. The major tropical plants cultivate in Pernambuco are Heliconia species. Some Heliconia species accumulate exudates, water and floral parts in bracts that form a micro habitat called phytotelmata which favors the occurrence of insects. Immersion in insecticides conventional solutions, together with physical cleaning is currently the main way to control these insects in tropical flowers postharvest. The use of natural products derived from plants is an alternative to this method in recent years. The objective this study was to identify the insect families associated to Heliconia bihai (L.) L. and evaluate the insecticidal potential of Piper marginatum Jacq., Piper aduncum L. and Eucalyptus citriodora Hook essential oils in insects that occur after the post-harvest, and the effect of these oils in inflorescences durability. The order Diptera showed the greatest values for infestation, frequency, abundance and constancy indexes. Was observed that 51.1% of the insects were dipterous the family Psycodidae (two morphospecies) and 19.5% of the family Tipulidae (one morphospecies). In the insect control evaluation, Natuneem promoted, respectively, 66.6% and 41.6% Coleoptera insects removal. There was no significative difference in Diptera larvae percentage removed in treatments and controls as the mortality larvae. This does not rule out the insecticidal activity of these oils. Isnecessary to develop new experiments using different concentrations of these oils to establish what the most suitable to insects control in H. bihai postharvest.