Desenvolvimento e avaliação in vitro da eficácia carrapaticida de formulações de contato à base dos óleos essenciais de Cymbopogon winterianus, Syzygium aromaticum e Rosmarinus officinalis

Abstract

The cattle tick, Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus (Canestrini 1887) is responsible for serious losses to Brazilian cattle, considering the costs of control, loss of revenue due to lower production of milk and meat, leather damage, beyond the transmission of diseases. The use of medicinal plants is considered an alternative to the applicant chemical resistance. Facing the necessity to effective alternatives with lower environmental impacts, the objective of this study was to develop contacts´ formulations containing essential oils of Citronella (Cymbopogon winterianus), Clove (Syzygium aromaticum) and Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) plants and evaluate in vitro acaricidal effects on different stages of the cycle of the tick. For this purpose, concentrations were used ranging from 0.5 - 15.0% of essential oils incorporated into the formulations. Ticks from different geographic regions were treated with the formulations and their effects on the rate of egg production, larval hatching and its efficiency on ticks were evaluated. The results were compared with chemistry acaricidal products. After the 20th day of treatment formulations containing the citronella´s essential oil had acaricidal efficacy between 2.09 to 55.51 %, with the clove´s essential clove, 92.47 to 100% and 26.44 to 40,78 % with rosemary´s essential oil. The association of clove essential oil with citronella essential oil obtained efficiency from 84.68 to 90.73% and for the association of citronella oil with rosemary oil, was 30.54 to 64.25%. The results showed the acaricidal activity of the tested formulations when compared to the chemicals acaricidal products. In vivo studies need to be conducted to validate the efficiency of the formulations under field conditions in order to use these products as an alternative for the control of cattle tick.