Efficacy of Abamectin and Thiamethoxam Mixture Against Bemisia Tabaci in Tomato and Toxicity on Male Albino Rats

Abstract

There are many benefits to mixing pesticides including controlling a broad spectrum of pest species and overcoming the phenomenon of insect resistance to the action of pesticides. Two field experiments were conducted during the 2019 and 2020 seasons, at Alwakeel village, El-Beheira Governorate, Egypt to investigate the efficacy of abamectin and thiamethoxam mixture (AB+THIA) against the whitefly, Bemisia tabaci. The mixture gave a high reduction of whiteflies, where the general means of initial and residual reduction percentage of adult stages were 83.3, 87.1% and 84.1%, 86.1% during 2019 and 2020, respectively. It recorded 85.4, 86.4% and 89.8, 87.8% of immature stages during 2019 and 2020, respectively. Recognized method, Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged and Safe (QuEChERS) was conducted to extract and clean up tomato fruits and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was used to quantify AB and THIA residue levels. They were below the maximum residue level (MRL). For toxicological studies, AB+THIA at MRL was administered on male Sprague Dewaly rats twice a week orally treated with the mixture for 4 weeks. The results obtained that activities of serum aspartate aminotransferases (AST), alanine aminotransferases (ALT), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), gamma-glutamylamyl transferase (γGT) and levels of uric acid, creatinine and urea significantly increased in the treated rats, respect to their controls. The mixture of AB and THIA triggered histopathological defects in liver and kidney sections of male rats. The present findings suggest that the mixture of AB and THIA could be used as an effective formulation for whitefly management by following the safety guidelines of pesticides usage and choosing the appropriate time for plant harvest to avoid as possible the harmful effects of pesticides.