Abstract
The need for preservation of wood to prolong its serviceable life is necessary thus developing a new safer eco-friendly preservative is of importance because of the damages caused by the chemical preservatives. This study, therefore, investigates the biopreservative potential of Mangifera indica seed oil extract against termite attack on Triplochiton scleroxylon and Termilania superba wood. The pod of M. indica was collected and dehauled while the seed was removed from the pod, sundried, and blended into fine particles. The fine cotyledon was subjected to solvent extraction for oil using a soxhlet apparatus and N-hexane as the solvent. Data collected was analyzed using simple statistics and analysis of variance at α0.05. The wood was dimensioned into 5x5x30 cm and the 200 ml of seed oil was applied by brushing and exposed to field termite while the absorption rate and weight loss to termite attack were determined. Data collected were analysed with a t-test at α0.05. The percentage absorption of preservative and weight loss of the wood sample to termite attack was assessed. The percentage absorption of T. superba and T. scleroxylon was recorded with a mean value of 7.87 and 6.26 % respectively. The percentage weight loss of wood samples was recorded to be 13.76 and 11.52 % for T. scleroxylon and T. superba respectively having the least mean value while the highest mean values were obtained for the control. The t-test conducted shows that the sampled wood species differ significantly in the absorption of seed oil and no significant difference (p>0.05) existed in the treated wood samples when compared with the untreated wood samples whose significantly differ (p≤0.05) for weight loss to termite. The M. indica seed extract can serve as an alternative preservative against termite attack thereby reducing environmental pollution that may arise from the use of conventional chemical preservatives.

Key words: seed oil extract, biopreservative, termite, wood