Chemical composition and repellency activity of essential oil from desert date seeds against thered flour beetle

This study aimed to determine the chemical constituents and repellency activity of essential oil from Balanites aegyptiaca (desert date)against adults of Tribolium castaneum(red flour beetle).The essential oil wasextracted by hydrodistillation and tested for repellent activity against the pest at different concentrations, 8, 4, 2 and 1%,locally made repellency equipment was used for repellency test. The essential oil was analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry(GC-MS).The analysis results of GC-MS showed a high percentage of oleic acid (94.93%), 6-octadecenoic acid (2.38%) and n-hexadecanoic acid (1.59%). The repellenteffect against the pest was observed in all tested essential oil concentrations, the highest concentration (8%)scored the highest percentage of repellent effect(89.95%).The results observed that insect repellency rate increased with the increase in essential oil concentration. The study revealed that the essential oil ofdesert date possesses repellent activities against adults of red flour beetle which may be used to control the pest.