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Explorative surveys were conducted to collect native isolates of the entomopathogenic fungus, Metarhizium anisopliae from forest pests and soil to study their potential for developing mycoinsecticides for management of selected forest pests. Nine promising isolates identified from among a collection of 25 isolates were examined for their pathogenicity against the forest pests, Hyblaea puera, Paliga machoeralis, Spilarctia obliqua, Hypsipyla robusta and Odontotermes spp. Besides this, the comparative conidia germination of the isolates under selected cultural conditions was also examined to identify the candidate isolates for pesticide development. The LC50 of the isolates ranged from 0.01 x105 to 759.21 x105 for the different pests. Isolate Ma2 was the most virulent against H. puera, P. machoeralis and Odontotermes sp. with significantly low LC50 values, viz., 0.65, 0.11 and 0.01x105 conidia, respectively for the three pests. Ma7 showed lowest LC50 of 1.20 and 1.77x105 spores against S. obliqua and H. robusta. Ma13 also showed high virulence against Odontotermes sp. The isolate Ma2 showed significantly higher germination under all the conditions evaluated. Radial growth and biomass, which are critical factors for selecting a strain for mass production, was also highest in Ma2 (64.5mm and 5.1gram/lit) followed by Ma7 (42.5mm and 4.6gram/lit). These observations indicate at least two of these isolates hold good potential for formulating a biopesticide for forest pest management.
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