The potential of some adjuvants in promoting infection with Verticillium lecanii: laboratory bioassays with Myzus persicae

Abstract

Summary The potential of 14 adjuvants, including mineral oils, vegetable oils, stickers, spreaders, surfactants and nutrients, in promoting the virulence of the entomopathogenic fungus Verticillium lecanii were compared relative to a commercial formulation of the pathogen. The rate of infection over time with each adjuvant relative to the commercial formulation was tested using the peach potato aphid Myzus persicae. The proportion of infected aphids was modelled binomially with a logistic rate function assumed for the proportion infected over the time period of the experiment. Four of the adjuvant treatments, Codacide, skimmed milk, glycerol and Cutinol together with the commercial control had similar logistic slope parameters and were modelled using parallel regressions. The parallel regressions model showed significant differences between the intercepts with both glycerol and Cutinol significantly better than V. lecanii alone. Glycerol had a more positive intercept than Cutinol but the difference was not statistically significant. Although highly variable, the numbers of progeny produced by the treated aphids were significantly reduced by all the treatments relative to untreated control aphids. Glycerol and Cutinol were the only treatments that significantly reduced the number of progeny relative to the V. lecanii control.