E ssential oils and the bio-insecticides have been utilized to protect the plants aginst
different kind of insects. However, it is really improtent to study the side effects of these
essential oils and insecticides on plants. The iPBS technique based on Long Terminal Repeat
(LTR) retrotransposons was applied in this study to detect the DNA damage in cowpea seeds
exposed to three plant oils of Trigonella foenum-graecum, Panax ginseng, Origanum majorana
and the bio-insecticide abamectin. Different levels of polymorphism ranged from 37.50%
polymorphism for primer 2394 to 82.35% polymorphism for primer 2270 with a total average
of 52.00%. Also, decrease in genetic template stability (GTS%) values were recorded with
all treatments as compared with the control. The value of Band Sharing Index (BSI) for each
treatment was calculated and the results showed that mixture 2 (LC20 abamectin + 2LC95
ginseng) showed the lowest (BSI) as compared with all treatments. The obtained results,
suggested that the assurance should be strongly taken in the consideration for the safety,
efficacy, and toxicity of the preparation derived from plants. Furthermore, iPBS assay is a
powerful tool for the detection of the genotoxic effects of environmental chemicals and offer
great promise for future especially for the determination of genetic damage following exposure
to contaminants.