Department of pests and plant protection, National Research Centre, 33rd Bohouth St. - Dokki, Giza, Egypt.
Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, Al-Azhar Univ., Egypt.
Plant Protection. Research. Institute., A. R. C., Dokki, Giza, Egypt.

*Corresponding Author E-mail: abdelraheem_nrc@hotmail.com, abdelraheem_nrc@yahoo.com

Accepted 8 June, 2015

The tomato leaf miner Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) has invaded tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) crop in Egypt and is representing today a major threat to the production of this crop. In This study, Efficacy of three concentrations (105; 106 and 107) of Beauveria bassiana, Metarhizium anisopliae and Verticillium lecanii were prepared and tested on T. absoluta larvae (Neonate "newly hatched”, 2nd & 3rd instar) to study the effect of these Entomopathogenic fungi on larval mortality. In addition, eggs of T. absoluta were exposed to tested fungi to evaluate their effect on hatchability under laboratory conditions. Results showed that; the estimated LC50 of values of B. bassiana, M. anisopliae and V. lecanii were (0.28 x 105 & 0.11 x 105), (0.45 x 105 & 0.46 x 105) and (0.32 x 105 & 0.27 x 105 conidia/ml) for neonate, 2nd instar & 3rd instar T. absoluta larvae, respectively. The effect of pathogen application was dependent on the instar phase at which the larvae were fed on leaves treated with the pathogen. Concerning the most effective concentration of each Entomopathogenic fungi, the higher the concentration (107) the higher mortality. The greatest percentage of mortality occurred in the newly hatched, 2nd instar followed by the third instar larvae when fed on leaves treated with tested fungi. After the exposure of the eggs to the three agents, the pathogenic effect was evident by the fourth day of evaluation after exposure in the three concentrations. The black appearance of eggs of T. absoluta took place after the exposure to the three concentrations of the three pathogenic fungi starting on the fifth day after exposure, and thereby no hatched larvae were detected in the three concentrations of the three pathogenic fungi compared to control where the hatchability reached 86.7%, 85.3% and 84.0% during the evaluation time for B. bassiana, M. anisopliae and V. lecanii, respectively.

Keywords: Entomopathogenic fungi, tomato leaf miner, Tuta absoluta.

How To Cite This Article:

Abdel-Raheem, M.A.*; Ismail, I.A.; Abdel-Rahman, R.S.; Abdel-Rhman, I. E. and Naglaa F. Reyad. Efficacy of Three Entomopathogenic Fungi on Tomato leaf miner, Tuta absoluta in Tomato crop in Egypt. Swift Journal of Agricultural Research 1(2), pp. 015-021.