Evaluation of Adjuvants on Growth and Virulence of Metarhizium rileyi against Spodoptera litura (F.) Grewal Gurmehar Kaur1, Joshi Neelam2,* 1Department of Microbiology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana141004, Punjab, India 2Department of Entomology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana141004, Punjab, India *Email: neelamjoshi_01@pau.edu (corresponding author)
Online Published on 04 January, 2024. Abstract This study evaluated the effect of adjuvants viz. glycerol, boric acid, carboxy methyl cellulose (CMC) and Tween-80 on the growth of Metarhizium rileyi (Farlow) Kepler, Rehner and Humber isolates. Their virulence against Spodoptera litura (F.) larvae has also been assessed. The isolates were observed to exhibit maximum surface area coverage and biomass with glycerol @ 5% and CMC @ 0.5%. Further, NIPHM isolate of M. rileyi supplemented with mixture of adjuvants- glycerol @ 5% and CMC @ 0.5% when evaluated against S. litura larvae gave maximum mortality (63.33%) and increase over control (without adjuvants- 2.69%). This study demonstrates the possible role of adjuvants in enhancing the growth of M. rileyi and its virulence against S. litura. Top Keywords Spodoptera litura, Metarhizium rileyi, Adjuvants, Carboxy methyl cellulose, Glycerol, Boric acid, Tween-80, Mixtures, Virulence, Surface coverage, Biomass, Mortality. Top |