Department of Agricultural Entomology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore-641 003, Tamil Nadu, India
*Corresponding author's E-mail: hemasellappan@gmail.com
Online published on 31 March, 2015.
Surveys revealed the predominant occurrence of the entomopathogenic fungi on BPH infesting rice crop. The fungus was identified as Metarhizium flavoviride Gams & Rozsypal var minus by the experts at the Division of Plant Pathology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110012. Since, M. flavoviride var. minus was isolated from the sucking insect, the virulence was tested against the other sucking pests viz., chilli thrips, Scirtothrips dorsalis Hood and tomato thrips, Thrips tabaci Lindeman, using detached leaf method. The pathogenicity of M. flavoviride var. minus was compared with Metarhizium anisopliae isolates obtained from different sources. The results revealed that, M. flavoviride var. minus was highly effective with the lowest values of 2.1 × 105 spores ml−1 and 2.6 × 105 spores ml−1 with LT50 values of 115.54 h and 122.50 h against LC50 chilli thrips and tomato thrips respectively. This is the first report of M. flavoviride var. minus on BPH from Tamil Nadu, India with infectivity against thrips infesting chilli and tomato.
Entomopathogenic fungi, metarhizium flavoviride var. minus, scirtothrips dorsalis, thrips tabaci
