Riffat Sultana, Yawar Saeed Wagan, Muhammad Naeem Muhammad Saeed Wagan and Imran Khatri
Keywords: Hieroglyphus, pest, cash crops entomopathogenic fungi, bio-control agent, population.
Abstract: The species of genus Hieroglyphus are a voracious and destructive pest of cash crops in Pakistan in order to decline their population three species of Hieroglyphus were treated with some strains of the entomopathogenic fungi under laboratory conditions. During the present study three pathogenic fungi species i-e Metarthizium flavoviride Gams and Roszypal, Beauveria bassiana (Bals.-Criv.) and Aspergillus sp. Micheliwere isolated and identified with infection the following incidence rates: (53%), (35%)and ( 12%) respectively on Hieroglyphus species. The proportional cumulative survival of Hieroglyphus in the different treatments of fungi is showed that insects treated with the pathogen began to die with full signs of mycosis on day 5th. All treated insects died by day 6th by application of M. flavoviride while other replicates of the B. bassiana and Aspergillus spp. all dying by day 7th. In contrast, control mortality was extremely low with only (6, 3, & 8) deaths of H. perpolita, H. oryzivouous and H. nigrorepletus respectively and with no signs of mycosis. This study recommended that M.flavoviride, B. bassiana and Aspergillus spp. among all the isolated entomopathogenic fungi are major factors of mortality in Hieroglyphus population and it might be used as bio-control agent to suppress the grasshopper’s population in field.
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