Feeding rate of subterranean termites in wood treated with smoke wood and borax

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Ni Subekti, F. Fibriana, P. Widiyaningrum

2018 IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering Vol. 434 Issue 1 Conference paper Cited by 1 Quartile

Abstract

This study aimed to analyze the feeding preference of subterranean termites (Coptotermes curvignathus) against 3 Indonesian native woods such as Jabon (Anthocephalus cadamba), Jati (Tectona grandis) and Ulin (Eusideroxylon zwageri) treated with borax and bamboo smoke wood. The method was conducted and evaluated according to Japanese Industrial Standards (JIS 2004) and Indoneisan National Standard (SNI 2014) with Pinus mercusii as the control. The results showed that Jabon (A. cadamba), Jati (T. grandis) and Ulin (E. zwageri) woods treated using smoke and borax were not significantly different. All treatments have effectively increased the resistance to subterranean termite attacks. The treated wood samples have less weight loss, higher termite mortality, and lower termite feeding rate compared to the untreated wood. Daily termite feeding rate of untreated P. mercusii was 1.63 mg/termite/day, smoke wood treated was 1.5 mg/termite/day and borax treated wood was 1.4 mg/termite/day. In conclusion, the smoke wood treatments effectively decreased the daily feeding rate of the termites. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.

Affiliations

Department of Biology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia; Department of Integrated Science, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia