Nerium oleander is a plant that has historically been known as a poisonous plant in the world. In several studies, all parts of the oleander are toxic and used to control pests. However, studies on the effects of oleander leave against Rattus argentiventer as a major agricultural rodent pest are limited. This research aimed to probe the potency of oleander leaves that extracted in methanol as rice-field rat repellent by T-test analysis using three replications on mature female and male rice-field rats. The experiments involve a choice test (T-maze arena) and no-choice test (metabolic cage) from February until May 2019. The result of the experiment showed that rice-field rats on the T-Maze avoided consuming food and beverage that close to the methanol extract of oleander leaves treatment. Therefore, the treatment in metabolic cage caused metabolic disorder of rice-field rats, which was indicated by the decrease of the average consumption of food by 2.27 g and excretion of feces by 0.67 g, and also the increase of average consumption of beverage by 4.53 ml, excretion of urine by 1.25 ml. Besides, the treatment also caused daily activity patterns disorder of rice-field rats, which was significantly indicated by the increase of the average percentage of time for resting activities by 2.16 % and the decrease of time for locomotion and nesting activities (by 0.92 % and 1.25 % respectively). In conclusion, oleander leaves have the potential to provide a repellent effect on rice-field rats.
Metabolic cage and self-design T-maze from this research, we believed could be suitable for any variety of rats and mice. Nevertheless, there might differ in terms of extract dosage amounts for application.
Sure they are, you can see on the latest of our research that showed from another plant https://www.scilit.net/article/92e7ce9050ec115bb6718f5f0e710347, and other types from Mr. Bari research. We believe that there are many types of plants that can be used and haven't been tested yet.
We haven't tested the durability of the extract yet on this research. It's possible the rats could be accustom to the smell but from our six days of our experiment, the majority of the rats still showed metabolic disorders from oleander treatment.
We see this oleander has been used in repellent tests and toxicity tests on several types of insects, but we've never seen this plant used as a bird repellent. However, this doesn't close the possibility of further research on other types of pests in the future.
From this experiment, we just applied 5 ml once on the first. The replacement could be possible if the environmental conditions are inadequate such as when the temperature is too high that can make the cloth dried fast.
We've already done preventive action to reduce the stress behavior by taking a week before the research held by putting the rats in the same condition as the control treatment. Nevertheless, it's possible to make further research by examining the brains of rats to know more about stress behavior.
Besides, your research is not very long, but its contents are clear and dense. It was also quite easy for a layman like me, who's not an expert in this kind of things. It's very helpfull, thank you.
