Nanobiotechnology

Biography

Biography: J Manjunath

Abstract

Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L) seed beetle (Caryedon serratus O) causes damage to the peanut seed to the extent of 20% over a period of 5 months of storage. Consequently, the economic loss recorded there by meets more or less to the production cost of the peanut. Therefore, there is an urgency to address this problem to boost the economic status of the farmers. Nanoscale materials (measured size is less than 99 nm in at least one dimension with quantum confinement) pose unusual properties compared to their bulk counter parts and use of these materials in agriculture and allied sectors is still at its infancy stage. Neem oil and neem based products are well known for their antifeedant properties against insects and are been widely used in controlling stored grain pests. However, the efficacy of neem based products in doing so is considerably low. Herein, we formulated nanoscale zinc oxide and nanoscale chitosan based neem oil and NSKE formulations for the first time and evaluated these nanoparticulate formulations against peanut seed beetle over a period of 6 months. The results revealed that up to 4 months there was no infestation, no pod damage and adult emergence with nanoparticulate formulation treatments which was more unlikely with the control (No application). Peanut pod weight loss (54.61%) and pod damage by count (3.82%) was significantly low with nanochitosan encapsulated NSKE compared to control (83.7%, 49.3% respectively). Thus nanoparticulate encapsulation of neem based products significantly affects the infestation of peanut beetle and pod damage thereby.