The present work was aimed to study the toxicity of the essential oils of three aromatic and medicinal plants on the tomato leaf miner Tuta absoluta and the Medfly Ceratitis capitata as an alternative to conventional pesticides. We carried out a phytochemical and insecticide study of T. zygis L., S. officinalis L. and M. suaveolens Ehrh. essential oils (EOs) through the study of their chemical composition and their toxicity on C. capitata adults and T. absoluta larvae. The extraction of the EOs by hydrodistillation showed yields of 3.87 ± 0.03, 4.09 ± 0.23 and 4.35 ± 0.11 for T. zygis, S. officinalis L. and M. suaveolens Ehrh., respectively. The identification of the chemical composition of the EOs by GC/MS showed that oxygenated monoterpenes constituted the most abundant group for all the extracted EOs. The major compounds were rather diversified depending on plant species. In fact, the S. officinalis L. EO mainly contained trans-thujone (21.80 %), the M. suaveolens Ehrh. EO mainly contained piperitenone oxide (71.19%), and carvacrol (61.60%) was the main component of the T. zygis L. EO. An insecticidal effect was observed for the three studied EOs on C. capitata adults and T. absoluta larvae. The observed LD50 values were 0.80 µL/mL and 11.04 µL/mL for M. suaveolens and S. officinalis, respectively, on T. absoluta larvae. For C. capitata adults, the obtained LD50 values were 0.9 µL/mL and 11.78 µL/mL for M. suaveolens and T. zygis, respectively. The presented findings could contribute to the development of biopesticides for plants as a component of integrated pest management strategies in citrus and tomato crops.
Keywords: C. capitata; LD50; T. absoluta; bioinsecticides; chemical analysis; essential oil; toxicity.