ONLINE ISSN 2069-7430 ISSN-L 1841-4737 PRO LIGNO Vol. 13 N° 1 2017 www.proligno.ro pp. 32-38 32 TERMITICIDAL ACTIVITY OF AQUEOUS EXTRACTS OF Erythrophleum suaveolens STEM BARK AND Lagenaria breviflora FRUIT PULP ON WOOD Emuobonuvie Amy EMERHI Reader, Dr. – Dept. of Forestry & Wildlife Delta State University, Asaba, Nigeria Email: eaemerhi@yahoo.com Gabriel Adetoye ADEDEJI * Lecturer ll, Dr. - University of Port Harcourt – Dept. of Forestry & Wildlife Mgt. East/West Road PMB 5323, Choba, Nigeria Email: gabriel.adedeji@uniport.edu.ng Bukola Amoo OYEBADE Senior Lecturer, Dr. - University of Port Harcourt – Dept. of Forestry & Wildlife Mgt. East/West Road PMB 5323, Choba, Nigeria Email: bukola.oyebade@uniport.edu.ng Abstract: Immense indigenously known antimicrobial and insect repellent activities of many plants’ tissues present a pool for selecting and formulating much needed alternative environmental friendly biocides to limiting wood degradation agents across the globe. Single and combined treatments of Erythrophleum suaveolens stem bark extract at 5%, 10%, 15% and 20%, and with 10 mL of Lagenaria breviflora fruit pulp juice extract on wood blocks of Triplochiton scleroxylon were comparatively investigated against outdoor field termites for three months in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Erythrophleum suaveolens stem bark yielded 4.4% extract. Combination effect of Erythrophleum suaveolens stem bark extract and Lagenaria breviflora fruit pulp juice extract (ESLE) treatments comparatively showed lower absorption and retention but significantly enhanced better termiticidal activity than Erythrophleum suaveolens stem bark extract alone (ESEA). The two extract types showed the strongest antitermites’ activities at the lowest concentration (5%) tested but ESLE significantly showed better effective wood protection than ESEA. The results suggested that ESEA, and ELSE could be better alternative substitute biocides, as they exhibited good termiticidal performance using small quantities. Key words: Erythrophleum suaveolens; Lagenaria breviflora; Termiticidal activity; Triplochiton scleroxylon wood. INTRODUCTION In recent years, considerable attention has been directed to the development of environmental friendly biocides as well as more obvious characters of sustainability and affordability in any scheme or process of wood protection method. Immense indigenously known antimicrobial and insect repellent activities of many plants’ tissues present a pool for selecting and formulating much needed environmental friendly biocides to limiting wood degradation agents. Hence, many investigations have revealed the excellent wood preservative profiles of some certain plant tissues across the globe. However, obtaining certain plant tissues extracts like heartwood extracts is not ecological friendly as its extraction does not compatible with conservation of the forests and to the tenets of sustainability of the species and wood protection method. The exploration of renewable parts of trees usually considered as waste like stem bark in the course of wood conversion and weed plants’ parts for wood preservatives will not only solve the environmental problems but also improve their economics. Erythrophleum suaveolens stem bark extract has been reported for the presence of appreciable high quantity of bioactive secondary metabolites (Adedeji et al. 2013) with significant excellent wood protection properties against; fungi (Ogunsanwo and Adedeji 2010), termites (Antwi-Boasiako and Baidoo 2010; Antwi- Boasiako and Eshun 2013; Asamoah et al. 2014), and including antibacterial activity (Aiyegoro et al. 2007). While Phytochemical studies of Lagenaria breviflora fruit revealed the presence of triterpenoids, saponins, phenols, alkaloids, anthraquinine, flavonoids, tannins and terpeniods (Elujoba et al. 1990, 1991; Banjo et al. 2013; Eyitayo et al. 2014) with significant interesting wood protection activity against termites in Nigeria (Emerhi et al. 2015). E. suaveolens stem bark and L. breviflora fruits could be economically collected during wood conversion process and weeding operations respectively. Maoz et al. (2012) pointed out that the use of * Corresponding author