Aphicidal Potential and Metabolomic Profiling of Floriculture Leaf Waste Extracts Against Aphis craccivora Koch Under Laboratory Conditions

ABSTRACT Farmers are shifting their interest from conventional to floriculture crops. The leaves of floriculture crops remain unused and are often discarded as waste. These wastes are a rich source of industrially valuable compounds with diverse biological activities. In this study, the methanolic extracts of leaf wastes of three floriculture crops, namely, Chrysanthemum grandiflorum , Tagetes patula , and Alstroemeria hybrida , were studied for their insecticidal potential against nymphs and adults of Aphis craccivora . The results of the study showed that C. grandiflorum extract (LC 50 = 637.49 ppm) exhibited higher insecticidal potential, followed by the extracts of T. patula and A. hybrida against adult A. craccivora . Similarly, nymphicidal bioassays showed that C. grandiflorum extract (LC 50 = 1398.36 ppm) was the most active, followed by T. patula and A. hybrida . The targeted and nontargeted metabolomics revealed the presence of insecticidal metabolites in the studied extracts. Enzyme activity studies of C. grandiflorum extracts showed acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibition activity, whereas T. patula and A. hybrida extracts showed AChE induction. Moreover, the studied extracts showed glutathione‐S‐transferase (GST) induction, with C. grandiflorum showing the most, followed by A. hybrida and T. patula extracts. This study advances the field of waste‐to‐wealth by utilizing the studied leaf wastes for the development of biopesticides.