Industrial Crops and Products 44 (2013) 600–602 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Industrial Crops and Products jo ur nal homep age: www.elsevier.com/locate/indcrop Short communication Simaroubaceae and Picramniaceae as potential sources of botanical pesticides María Laura Martínez a,∗ , Gilsane von Poser b , Amelia Henriques b , Martha Gattuso a , Carmen Rossini c a Cátedra de Botánica, Facultad de Ciencias Bioquímicas y Farmacéuticas, UNR, Suipacha 531, S2002LRK Rosario, Argentina b Laboratório de Farmacognosia, Faculdade de Farmácia, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Av Ipiranga 2752, CP 90.610-000 Porto Alegre, Brazil c Laboratorio de Ecología Química, Facultad de Química, Universidad de la República, Gral. Flores 2124, CP 11800 Montevideo, Uruguay a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 5 June 2012 Received in revised form 18 September 2012 Accepted 23 September 2012 Keywords: Picramniaceae Simaroubaceae Botanical antifeedant agent Epilachna paenulata Spodoptera frugiperda a b s t r a c t Prospection for new sources of botanical pesticides has shown a revival in the last decades due not only to the fast development of resistance among different pests around the world but also by the need to use less eco-toxic products to control etiological agents of different pest-related problems found in agro-production. In this work, extracts from members of the families Simaroubaceae (Ailanthus altissima, Castela coccinea and Picrasma crenata) and Picramniaceae (Alvaradoa subovata and Picramnia sellowii) were evaluated for their toxicity against the cattle tick and for their antifeedant activity against insects. At the tested doses, none of the extracts exhibited a good toxicity against larvae of the common cattle tick. On the other hand, antifeedant activity was detected in various extracts. Foliage consumption was completely deterred in adults of the specialist Epilachna paenulata in the cases of the C. coccinea leaf and wood extracts and P. crenata wood extract. For larvae of the generalist Spodoptera frugiperda antifeedant effects were also detected, although in a lesser extent. Phytochemical analyses of the extracts showed the presence of alkaloids in P. crenata (including canthin-6-one) and in C. coccinea. Besides, GC/MS analyses of the wood extract from C. coccinea showed the presence of several steroids (ergot 5-en-3-ol-acetate, stigmastan-3,5 diene and stigmasta-3,5dien-7-one). Anthraquinones (emodin and chrysophanol) as well as chlorogenic acid were detected in the cases of A. subovata and P. sellowii extracts. The differences in deterrent activity could not be atributed to differences in the HPLC chemical profiles of the different extracts. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The indiscriminate worldwide use of synthetic chemicals for crop protection has led to environmental contamination, pest resis- tance and negative impact on non-target organisms (Philogène et al., 2005). In contrast, plant-derived pesticides are eco-friendly and have low persistence. Strategies for studying new insecticidal natural products include screening on the most traditionally used bioactive families. Among them, the Simaroubaceae family has demonstrated to possess insecticidal properties (e.g. Lü and Shi, 2012). Ailanthus, Picrasma and Castela genera belong to this family. Picramnia and Alvaradoa although formerly belonged to this fam- ily, both were segregated and included in the recently established Picramniaceae family (Fernando and Quinn, 1995). In the present work the deterrent and toxic activities of leaves and wood extracts of three species of the Simaroubaceae fam- ily (Ailanthus altissima, Castela coccinea and Picrasma crenata) and two species of the Picramniaceae family (Alvaradoa subo- vata and Picramnia sellowii) were assessed. Deterrent activity was ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +54 341 4804592; fax: +54 341 4804592. E-mail address: mlmartin1967@gmail.com (M.L. Martínez). evaluated against the specialist Epilachna paenulata (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) and the generalist Spodoptera frugiperda (Lepi- doptera: Noctuidae), pest species that were selected due to their different diet breath. Both species are themselves important agri- cultural pests, either in conventional or in organic production (Scatoni and Bentancourt, 1999). Toxicity was evaluated against larvae of the cattle tick, Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus (Acari: Ixodidae) which represents a major sanitary problem for the cat- tle industry in tropical and subtropical regions. They have been traditionally controlled with pyrethroids and formamidines (Sardá Ribeiro et al., 2010). 2. Materials and methods 2.1. Plant material and extracts Leaf and wood were collected with flowers and/or fruits to enable the identification (carried out by the authors). Voucher specimens (numbers indicated below) were deposited at the UNR herbarium. The locations and date of collection were the following: A. subovata Cronquist ARGENTINA Prov. Tucumán: Dpto. Burruyacú, 7-VII-2007, Gattuso M. 248 (UNR). P. sellowii Planch. ARGENTINA. Prov. Chaco: Dpto. Bermejo, 23-XI-2007, Oakley et al., 53 (UNR) C. 0926-6690/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2012.09.015