THE ROLE OF ENTOMOPATHOGENIC NEMATODES, STEINERNEMA SPP, IN THE BIOLOGICAL CONTROL OF AGROTIS IPSILON (LEPIDOPTERA: NOCTUIDAE)

Ibrahim, S.A.; Mahfouz, H.M.; Elshershaby, Mahasen M.; Hussein, Mona A.; Dawod, A.A.

doi:10.21608/mjapam.2017.126794

THE ROLE OF ENTOMOPATHOGENIC NEMATODES, STEINERNEMA SPP, IN THE BIOLOGICAL CONTROL OF AGROTIS IPSILON (LEPIDOPTERA: NOCTUIDAE)

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Plant Production Department, Faculty of Environmental Agric., Sciences, El-Arish University

² Plants Protection Research Institute, Agricultural Researches Center

³ Pests and Plant Protection Department, National Research Centre

10.21608/mjapam.2017.126794

Abstract

The black cutworm, Agrotis ipsilon is one of the major pests with a wide host range; larvae spend most of their life in the soil. In this study, two strains of Entomopathogenic Nematodes (EPNs); Steinernema carpocapsae (All strain) and Steinernema scaptersci (SS) were tested for its virulence against the 4th instar larvae of A.ipsilon at laboratory and semi-field experiments under two types of soils (sandy and clay soil). Four concentrations of each strain were evaluated against 4th larval instar (5, 10, 20 and 40 Infective juveniles (IJs)/larvae) were applied for the laboratory experiments, while the concentrations (50, 100 and 200 IJs/ larvae) for semi-field experiments. Result show that, all treatments of S. carpocapsae induced higher mortality percentages than S. scaptersci, except at 5 IJs/ larvae concentration for sandy soil application. In addition, it could be concluded that, S.carpocapsae in sandy soil treatment was highly effective than clay soil. In most treatments, it was observed that there were insignificant differences between S.carpocapsae and S.scaptersci except at 50 IJs/ml water for sandy soil where S.carpocapsae treatment induced higher mortality percentage at 200 IJs/ml water.

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