Safety of spinetoram 12 SC to honey bees and earthworms

Abstract

Investigations were carried out to assess the contact toxicity of spinetoram 12 SC to workers of Indian bee, Apis cerana indica and earthworm species Eudrilus eugeniae. Contact toxicity of spinetoram 12 SC to Indian bees, A. cerana indica F. showed that there was no mortality recorded due to spinetoram 12 SC at 36 g a.i./ha (very low dose of biological insecticide spinetoram 12 SC), while spinetoram 12 SC at 45 g a.i./ha (2.6%) and spinetoram 12 SC at 54 g a.i./ha (8.3%) at 6 HAT were least toxic. Emamectin benzoate 5 SG at 8.5 g a.i/ha (10.4%), spinetoram 12 SC at 108 g a.i/ha (21.5%) were slightly toxic. The mortality greater than before as the time of exposure increased from 6 to 24 HAT. Toxicity of spinetoram 12 SC to earthworm, E. eugeniae showed that there was lowest mortality recorded in spinetoram 12 SC at 36 g a.i./ha (1.2%) followed by spinetoram 12 SC at 45 g a.i./ha (5.3%) and spinetoram 12 SC at 54 g a.i./ha (13.7%) at 7 DAT. Emamectin benzoate 5 SG at 8.5 g a.i/ha (14.3%), spinetoram 12 SC at 108 g a.i/ha (19.7%) were moderately toxic. At 7 DAT, percent mortality was recorded in Novaluron 10 EC at 75 g a.i/ha (21.7%), quinalphos 25 EC at 200 g a.i/ha (26.3%), chlorpyriphos 20 EC at 200 g a.i/ha (27.0%), cypermethrin 25 EC at 50 g a.i/ha (37.3%) and indoxacarb 14.5 SC at 75 g a.i/ha (39.0%). The mortality increased as the time of exposure increased from 7 to 14 DAT. Hence, spinetoram 12 SC considered could be highly safe to Indian honey bee species Apis cerana indica and earthworm species Eudrilus eugeniae than standard insecticides

DOI

https://doi.org/10.29321/MAJ.2019.000320

Pages

613 - 617

Creative Commons

Copyright

© The Author(s), 2026. Published by Madras Agricultural Students' Union in Madras Agricultural Journal (MAJ). This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited by the user.

Keywords