Management of soybean pests using entomopathogenic fungi and their combinations

Abstract

The field experiment was under taken to evaluate the efficacy of different seven combination biopesticides viz. Metarhizium rileyi, Metarhizium rileyi + Lecanicillium lecanni, Metarhizium rileyi + Beauveria bassiana, Metarhizium anisopliae (local strain) + Beauveria bassiana, Lecanicillium lecanni + Beauveria bassiana, Metarhizium rileyi + Lecanicillium lecanni + Beauveria bassiana, Lecanicillium lecanni + Beauveria bassiana + Metarhizium rileyi + Metarhizium anisopliae against soybean pests during 2023-2024 was conducted at Department of Entomology, VNMKV., Parbhani. The result revealed that against Spodoptera litura, Helicoverpa armigera, semilooper concluded that all the biopesticides treatment were found significantly superior in recording minimum number of defoliators. In most of cases among all biopesticides the microbial agent treatment L. lecanii + B. bassiana + M. rileyi + M. anisopliae found significantly superior over rest of the treatments by recording lowest population of larvae/mrl. Next best microbial agent treatments were M. rileyi + L. lecanni + B. bassiana, M. anisopliae + B. bassiana which were found at par with each other. It was followed by microbial agent treatments, M rileyi + B. bassiana and L. lecanni + B. bassiana, M. rileyi + L. lecanni and M. rileyi. The treatments with L. lecanni + B. bassiana + M. rileyi + M. anisopliae recorded the highest yield (1880.60 q/ha) with benefit cost ratio 1:5 followed by treatment M. rileyi + L. lecanni + B. bassiana (1774.24 q/ha) with benefit cost ratio 1:4.8, M. anisopliae + B. bassiana (1655.61 kg/ha yield) with benefit cost ratio 1:4.55, which were found at par with each other.