The potency of Myrtaceae Family from Cibodas Botanic Gardens (Cianjur, Indonesia) as botanical pesticide

Abstract. Pratiwi RA, Nurlaeni Y. 2021. The potency of Myrtaceae Family from Cibodas Botanic Gardens (Cianjur, Indonesia) as botanical pesticide. Biodiversitas 22: 4648-4664. Cibodas Botanic Gardens (CBG) is a biodiversity reservoir that can be explored for the discovery of new candidates for botanical pesticides. Myrtaceae has been reported to provide biological activity against pests or pathogens due to their essential oil contents. This research was conducted to inventory and categorize Myrtaceae collection in CBG that had the potency to be botanical pesticide. The list of Myrtaceae collection of CBG obtained from Unit Registration and Collection CBG per 2021. Database fulfilling regarding the bactericide/fungicide/herbicide/insecticide potency of the Myrtaceae of CBG’s collection was carried out through digital references search. Our result showed that there were 73 species of Myrtaceae (from 18 genera) that are potential to be botanical pesticide sources. There were 17 species that are considerably had a high potency. Most of them belong to the Eucalyptus and Melaleuca, followed by Backhousia, Leptospermum, Psidium, and Syzygium. The data resulted from this study is expected to serve as baseline information for further research about the formulation, efficacy, and conservation management of botanical pesticides from Myrtaceae for sustainable use. Furthermore, the development of biological pesticides is a step to improve the quality of Indonesian export products so as to increase national competitiveness in the globalization era nowadays.