Seasonal assessment of Boophilus microplus larvae recovery in four forage legumes in experimental infested plots.

摘要

The objective of this study was to determine the number of Boophilus microplus larvae recovered from plots planted with Leucaena leucocephala, Macroptilium artropurpureum, Stylosanthes humilis and S. hamata experimentally infested with larvae during 5 seasons in a subtropic, subhumid climate. The experiment was carried out in the Municipality of Jiutepec, Morelos, Mexico. The experimental area consisted of 24 plots of 35 m2 each, with a one metre pathway between each plot. Each plot was divided in 5 subplots (5 m long and one metre wide) with a 0.5-m pathway between each subplot. Each subplot was infested with 5000 larvae for 5 seasons. Dragging flag larvae sampling was carried out in each experimentally infested subplot in each season at 7, 14 and 21 days after larvae infestation. Data were analysed statistically through the MANOVA method. The number of recovered larvae showed significant differences between the 4 legume species (F=4.92; df 3300; P=0.002). The higher mean larvae recovery was in S. hamata (280.28+or-375.21) and the lower was in L. leucocephala (85.31+or-205.42). Significant differences were also found between the 5 seasons studied for average larval recovery (F=144.55; df 4.300; P=0.0001). It was concluded that an anti-tick effect of the 4 studied legumes during the 5 seasons was observed. Moreover, 2 of these legumes had not been reported before in literature..