Limacide (moluscocide) action of L-ascorbic acid

The aim of the present study was to assess L-ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) as potential limacid (molluscicide). The experiments were conducted in the Agricultural University-Plovdiv, Bulgaria. As test organisms were used some of the most common slug species in Bulgaria: Arion hortensis, Limax maximus and Deroceras agreste. The collected from apple orchard fields slugs were placed in plastic boxes (10 slugs per box) and sprayed with water solutions of vitamin C (L-ascorbic acid) at different concentrations. Five repetitions were conducted per test variant. The control variant was sprayed only with distilled water. The mortally rate was calculated by formula of Abbot. A Dose–response modeling and Dose– response Curve was done by R language of Statistical Computing (drc package). The results show that L-ascorbic acid at a concentration of 2.5-3% can kill slugs approximately 20-30 minutes after treatment. The ANOVA analysis shows that there were no significant differences (p>0.05) between effectiveness of L-ascorbic acid towards different slug species. L-ascorbic acid can be effective, relatively cheap, healthy and environmentally friendly alternative of commercial and dangerous molluscicides Keywords: Arion, Deroceras, limacid, Limax, molluscicide, vitamin C