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Strong-smelling plant extracts, such as essential oils, have a variety of feeding effects on mammals. Considering current concerns over long-term health issues and environmental effects of chemicals, plant-based products with repellent or antifungal activities may represent good solutions for improvement of rodent pest control programs. The present study was therefore focused on examining the effects of bergamot, lavender, and thyme essential oils as additional bait components on daily intakes of cereal-based baits by wild house mice. Lavender essential oil, containing linalool and linalyl acetate as main components, and thyme essential oil with a prevailing thymol component had no effects on house mice diet. Bergamot essential oil, whose main components were linalool, limonene, and linalyl acetate, showed a repellent effect on house mouse diet.

The common vole, Microtus arvalis, which is prone to cyclic overpopulation, poses a significant threat to sustainable alfalfa production by either chewing shoots periodically or gnawing and damaging roots permanently. In areas with established vole colonies, the density of alfalfa plants was shown to decrease 55.3–63.4%. Simultaneously, the number of alfalfa shoots decreased by 60.9–71.7%. These experiments were conducted in compliance with an EPPO standard method in alfalfa fields at three geographically remote sites. The experiment tested the efficacy of the most widely used acute rodenticide zinc phosphide (2%), and anticoagulants applied at significantly reduced doses of active ingredients, i.e., bromadiolone (25 ppm) and brodifacoum (25 ppm), as well as a combination of these active ingredients at a low concentration (10 + 10 ppm). Three weeks after treatment, zinc phosphide and brodifacoum achieved the highest average efficacy, at 98.5% and 92.05%, respectively, while the average efficacy of the anticoagulant combination and bromadiolone was 87.2% and 75.5%, respectively. The achieved efficacy of baits based on brodifacoum and the combination of brodifacoum and bromadiolone in controlling common voles indicates their possible utilization in the field. Baits with 25 ppm of brodifacoum and the combination of bromadiolone and brodifacoum (10 + 10 ppm) showed satisfactory results and their introduction could significantly improve pest management programs for rodent control. At the same time, the use of anticoagulant rodenticides with reduced contents of active ingredients would significantly reduce their exposure to non-target animals, especially predators and vultures. By further improving the palatability of tested baits for target rodent species, their efficacy and safety of application would be significantly improved.

The effect of cinnamon (Cinnamomi zeylanicum) and clove (Eugenia caryophyllata) essential oils on the acceptibility of cereal-based baits to house mice in storage facilities was examined. The effects of three concentrations, 0.5, 0.75 and 1 %, were tested for optimization purposes. The experiments were performed in a mill storage, and in another storage for seeds and seedlings. Attractiveness of the examined concentrations of cinnamon and clove essential oils was statistically significant, compared to placebo bait, within seven days of the experiment. On the seventh day, the average consumption of baits containing 0.75 % and 1 % concentrations of cinnamon oil was 46 % in the mill storage, i.e. 35.5 % more than placebo baits were consumed. Fourteen days after the beginning of the experiment, no significant difference was detected in the consumption of baits offered in the mill storage. On the other hand, a significant difference was revealed regarding the consumption of examined baits in the seed and seedling storage. The average consumption of baits containing 0.75 % and 1 % cinnamon oil was 47 % and 51 % higher after 14 days than the consumption of placebo bait. Compared to the other test baits, those containing cinnamon essential oil at 0.75 % and 1 % concentration demonstrated better attractiveness without mutual statistically significant differences.