Background:
Insect pests cause serious damage to important cultivated crops. In the last few decades, chemical control is widely adopted for management of these insect pests. However, dependence on pesticides is not sustainable because of associated environmental problems, development of resistance to insects, insecticides and outbreak of secondary pests. Hence there is a need to identify suitable alternative methods for the management of insect pests and among them, entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) are considered to be potential biological control agents against insect pests and the use of EPN has now become an integral part of insect pest management. The limitation of the short shelf-life of EPN seriously hampers the survival of infective juveniles of nematode formulations. Oxygen and moisture are critical factors in storing of EPN in formulation for a longer time. There is a need to develop an EPN formulation with extended shelf-life and storage potential at tropical temperatures wherein the nematode viability and infectivity should be maintained with survival rate more than 90 percent. Technology Details:
A novel EPN (Entomopathogenic nematodes) powder formulation was developed first of its kind by storing EPN in a carrier material to extend the shelf life of EPN by providing adequate aeration andmoisture.The EPN powder formulation can be used as a potential biopesticide against white grubs and other pests. The EPN formulation can be stored at room temperature in a sealed aluminium lined high density polyethylene sachets. The process for the formulation of entomopathogenic nematode based biopesticide includes Heterorhabditis indica strain SBITND78 (GenBank Accession Number KF937809) and Steinernema glaseri strain SBILN1 (GenBank Accession Number MK503713). The formulation containing Heterorhabditis indica strain SBITND78 has a shelf life of nine months with 92% survival of nematodes and the formulation containing Steinernema glaseri strain SBILN1 has a shelf life of 12 months with 90% survival of nematodes. The EPN formulation contains one lakh infective juveniles (IJs) of Heterorhabditis indica strain SBITND78and fifty thousand IJs of Steinernema glaseri strain SBILN1 per gram of powder. The EPN formulation caused mortality of the insect larvae of lepidopteran larvae Galleria mellonella and coleopteranwhite grub Holortrichia serrata.