Prospecting of entomopathogenic fungi for management of Sitophilus oryzae and Sitophilus zeamays

• Grant number: 12/00654-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: March 01, 2012
• End date: December 31, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Agronomy - Plant Health
• Principal Investigator: Ricardo Antonio Polanczyk
• Grantee: Milena de Godoy Sato
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Agrárias e Veterinárias (FCAV). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Jaboticabal. Jaboticabal , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Sitophilus zeamays and Sitophilus oryzae are the key weevils to stored grain, they are really polyphagous, they can attack the crop in the field and in the storeroom and they have great reproductive performance. Therefore farmers used highly aggressive pesticides to control them. These products are not only aggressive to the plague, but also to the environment and they can be harmful to people. The biological control of pests is a viable alternative to the use of pesticides that can be replaced with natural agents with equally effective and it does not have harmful effects. The project aims is select isolates of entomopathogenic fungi Beauveria bassiana, Metarhizium anisopliae and Isaria fumosorosea in virulence and pathogenicity tests to obtain information about the potential in the management of S. oryzae and S. zeamays.(AU)