Enhancing the Efficacy of Certain Spray-Dried Baculovirus (AgipMNPV) against Cutworm, Agrotis ipsilon Hufnagel (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)

Abstract

The insecticidal efficacy of various baculovirus formulations against the cutworm Agrotis ipsilon was determined. The treatments consisted of molasses from suagrcane mixing with each of wheat germ, biochar, talc, chitosan, silica gel, pyrolysis bio-oilaqueous phase, pyrolysis bio-oilorganic phase, calcium carbonate, cornflour, calcium cassinate, aluminium potasium sulphate, Diatomaceous earth, dextrin, lignin PC 1307, soy screen, blankphor, skim milk powder, potassium cassinate, magnsium chloride, date molasses and pregelatinized starch. All applied in spray-dried at 2.2 x 109 occlusion body(OB) mL-1. The bioassay of each spray-dried formulation using the droplet feeding method by the blue solution containing 2% sugar and 0.1% blue dye. The resulting suspensions should all contain 0.377 x 106 OB mL-1, represent the LD70 for the unformulated virus. Exposure newly hatched larvae of cutwormsand transfer to individual diet cups for each treatment and incubated at 28oC in dark incubator for 7 days. The obtained results revealed that satisfactory control of the pest of 100% larval mortality compared to untreated control was achieved with the formulations containing molasses mixing with talc, silica gel, calcium carbonate, cornflour, calcium cassinate, diatomaceous earch, soy screen, and dextrin. However, the formulations containing chitosan, pyrolysis bio-oilaqueous phase and pyrolysis bio-oilorganic phase gave the lowest mortalities as 12.2, 11.1 and 6.7%, respectively. These findings is an attempt to provides an interesting alternative developed biopesticide formulations made with natural ingredients that could improve the efficacy and persistence of virus-based biopesticides.