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A.R.K. RAO*, K. DEVAKI and T.V.S. RAJANI KUMARI
Institute of Frontier Technology, Department of Entomology Regional Agricultural Research Station, Tirupati – 517 502, Andhra Pradesh, India.
The microbial pesticides viz., Bacillus thuringiensis (Berl.), Beauveria bassiana (Balsanco) Viegas, Metarhizium anisopliae (Metschnikoff) Sorkin, Verticillium lecani (Zimm.) Viegas and Nomuraea rileyi (Farlow) Samson were evaluated against the larvae of citrus leaf miner, Phyllocnistis citrella Stainton during 2010 at AICRP on Citrus, Tirupati. The results revealed that all the microbials proved pathogenic to citrus leaf miner larvae with varied mortality. B. thuringiensis was proved highly effective and recorded 96.76 per cent mortality on 10th day. In fungal treatments, the initial mortality was noticed on 6th day after treat-ment. Nomuraea rileyi offered superior control against citrus leaf miner by recording highest mortality of 79.36 per cent reduc-tion in population. M. anisopliae also proved effective and occupied second position among the fungal pathogens (78.38%) and B. bassiana (64.79%) and V. lecani (59.17%) were proved less effective compared to N. rileyi and M. anisopliae.
KEY WORDS: Citrus, Citrus leaf minor, Microbial pesticides,