Assessment of lavender oil, lavender nano-emulsion and its nanocomposite with chitosan as a novel bio pesticide against peach fruit fly

Abstract Over the past ten years, the peach fruit fly, Bactrocera zonata (Saunders) (Diptera: Tephritidae), has become a major pest in Egypt, causing harm to a variety of fruit crops. Traditional chemical pesticides are the main tools used in the area to control B. zonata . However, there aren’t many plant-based pesticides that are both efficient and safe for the environment that can be used to control B. zonata . The goal of this study is to create lavender nano-emulsions and lavender-chitosan nanocomposite for the first time as bio-agents against B. zonata , the peach fruit fly, in a lab setting. Lavender at a concentration of 100% demonstrated the lowest hatchability rate (58.33%) and complete larval mortality (100%). In lavender-chitosan nanocomposite and lavender nano-emulsion, 2% LEO showed no statistically significant difference was found ( p > 0.05) low pupation rates of 14.29 and 25.98, in contrast to 88.46% for the untreated groups. The two compounds resulted in slightly lower normal emerged adults (16.70 and 24.98%), whereas the opposite was observed with the abnormal emerged adults (83.30 and 59.99%) in comparison to the untreated control (100 and 0.00%, respectively). Our findings suggest that LEO with low concentration in the form of nanoemulsion, along with chitosan composite, affects B. Zonata . Further research is underway to explore varying lavender concentrations to enhance its effectiveness against B. Zonata .