Botanical pesticide ability to control black pod rot of cacao Phytophthora palmivora (Butl.) Butl in the field

Abstract

The use of synthetic chemical pesticides for cacao black pod rot disease control to remove heavy metal residues on cacao beans needs to be reduced. This research aimed to find out the ability of botanical pesticides to lower BPR incidence, BPR infection rate, and botanical pesticides’ efficacy in controlling BPR. It was conducted at the Cacao Research Substation Garden of the Plantation and Horticulture Office of Southeast Sulawesi. The treatments experimented included control (no pesticide), CNSE, CNSE + CSLS, CNSE + whiteflower albizia bark extract, CNSE + siam weed leaf extract, CNSE + candle bush leaf extract, CNSE + whiteflower albizia bark extract + siam weed leaf extract + candle bush leaf extract, and synthetic pesticide with active ingredient copper oxysulfate at 345 g/L. Group-randomized trial was used as design in triplicate. The research results showed that the botanical pesticides of CNSE, and the was mixture with of CSLS, siam weed leaf extract, candle bush leaf extract, and whiteflower albizia bark extract were able to lower the disease incidence and slow down the infection rate of BPR. The lowest BPR incidence and infection rates were discovered in the CNSE + Siam weed leaf extract treatment, each at 38.90% and 0.087 per pod per week. The CNSE botanical pesticide mixed with Siam weed leaf extract, whiteflower albizia bark extract, and candle bush leaf extract demonstrated good efficacy above 50%, hence feasible to use as an alternative to chemical pesticides in BPR control.