Avaliação de substratos brutos alternativos para produção do fungo entomopatogênico Beauveria bassiana (Bals) Vuillemin (Deuteromycotina: hyphomycetes).

Abstract

Beauveria bassiana is a promising fungus for the biological control of insect pests. The growing costs of conidia production have raised the need to ascertain the efficiency of some low cost substrates. The aim of this study was to analyze the potential use of different raw substrates for conidiogenesis in an effort to reduce production costs. The production and viability of the conidia were evaluated using 30 g of substrate and 0.3 μL of a conidia suspension (1 x 106 conidia/mL). After 10 days of incubation (70 ± 10% humidity and temperature (T) = 29 ± 1 °C), rice (2.00 x 106 conidia/g substrate), algaroba (2.36 x 106 conidia/g), malt A (1.22 x 106 conidia/g) and malt B (1.75 x 106 conidia/g) showed higher levels of conidia production. The resulting conidia showed greater than 80% insecticidal activity on coconut termites. These new raw substrates may represent viable alternatives for the production of entomopathogenic fungi for use in the biological control of various insect pests.