Prevalence and effectiveness of Metarhizium anisopliae against Spodoptera exigua (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) in Southern Punjab, Pakistan.

Entomopathogenic fungi are an efficient tool for the biological control of a wide range of insect pests particularly related to agricultural crops. The soils from diverse sources (agricultural crops, vegetables, orchards and plantation) were collected from different locations of Multan and Bahawalpur Districts for the isolation of different insect pathogenic fungi by using semi selective medium. The soils from the cotton fields harbor more number of Metarhizium anisopliae than other soil sources with recovery percentage of 18.12 and 7.5 for Isaria fumosorosea. The efficiency of M. anisopliae was evaluated against 3 rd instar larvae of Spodoptera exigua in laboratory and semi field/green house conditions. Fungal isolate Ma002 proved to be more effective both in laboratory and semi field conditions showing 87.5 and 81.25% mortality of Spodoptera exigua. The presence of these fungi in the soils of different fields requires further work to be done for their efficacy against different insect pests and particularly Ma002 for finding the characters that make it different from the other isolates from same place or geographical origins.