K. PRIYANKADEVI*, M. VISALAKSHI , M.S.V.CHALAM , V. CHANDRASEKHAR AND M. RAJASRI

Department of Entomology, S.V. Agricultural College, ANGRAU, Tirupati-517 502.

ABSTRACT

Entomopathogenic fungi (EPF) are a group of fungi that infect and kill insect pests making them valuable tools for biological pest control. These fungi occur naturally in the environment and can be used as biopesticides to manage insect pests in agriculture. Soil samples were collected from agricultural crops like Maize, Paddy, Sugarcane and wild tree soil samples like Cannon ball (Nagamalli), Peepal, Spanish cherry (Mimusops elengi), Anjeer, Neolamarckia cadamba from Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam and Anakapalle districts of Andhra Pradesh. The fungal isolates were isolated using soil serial dilution and inoculated on SDAY media. Microscopic observation of fungal isolates was done under NIKON Eclipse E200 at 40x magnification and images were captured using V-image 2013 software. Based on morphological features like white colony colour, branched conidiophore, hyaline oval conidia, one of the isolates was identified as Beauveria. Whereas the other isolate with olive green colony colour, whorls of round conidia was identified as Metarhizium.

KEYWORDS: Native entomopathogenic fungi, Isolation, Identification, Beauveria, Metarhizium.