Record of entomopathogenic fungi from Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry

Based on 9-year field surveys in rice, pulses, groundnut, cotton and cashew conducted in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry revealed the occurrence of 16 species of entomogenous fungi including 11 of Deuteromycotina viz., Aspergillus flavus Link., Aspergillus niger Van Tiegh., Beauveria bassiana (Bals.) Vuill, Cladosporium sp., Fusarium pallidoroseum (Cooke) Sacc., Fusarium sp., Metarhizium anisopliae (Mets.) Sorokin, Metarhizium flavoviridae var minus Rombach, Metarhizium sp., Nomuraea rileyi (Farlow) Samson and Verticillium lecanii (Zimm.) Viegas and 5 of Zygomycotina viz., Entomophthora delphacis (Hori) Humber, Mucor hiemalis Wehmer, Pandora delphacis (Hori) Humber, Rhizopus oryzae Went and Zoophthora radicans (Brefeld) Batko. Spontaneous epizootics of one or more species of these fungi were encountered on 15 species of insect-pests. The extent of mycosis in different species of insects ranged from 5–100 per cent. Most epizootics occurred in cold weather period from October–February, coinciding with peak period of pest occurrence. Intermittent rainfall coupled with high humid weather favoured the mycosis.