EFFICACY OF ENTOMOPATHOGENIC FUNGUS (Metarhizium anisopliae) AGAINST WHITE GRUBS UNDER LABORATORY CONDITION

Abstract

White grub is a polyphagous and nefarious larvae of chafer beetles (Scarabaeidae: Coleoptera) cause damage to wide range of crops of agricultural field. An integrated pest management (IPM) is required to control the white grub using this pest effectively, within which biological control is now beginning to play a key role. Hence the main objective of this study was to isolate entomopathogenic fungi: Metarhizium anisopliae and study the insecticidal effect of it against white grubs under maintained laboratory conditions. Overall 100 white grubs were collected from different agricultural field of Paripatle, Dhankuta, Nepal and maintained viable in lab by standard method fedding carrot pieces. Among them 2 white grubs were noticed to be infected with M. anisopliae and from each cadavers (died white grub) was isolated and identified by conventional microbiological methods from and indicated as (Ma 1 and Ma 2). Selective media with Streptomycin and Tetracycline antibiotics were used for the isolation of entomopathogens. For insecticidal assay 30 larvae (for each of three replication) were dipped individually into the conidial suspension (107 /ml) for five seconds. Efficacy % of Ma1 (54.05) was more than Ma2 (40.52) which was calculated from bioassay record. One way ANOVA shows significant results for FD and SR with treatments (control, Ma1 and Ma2).The result concluded that, there is great possibility that the entomopathogenic fungi could be safe microbial control agents in managing white grubs.