Tolerance of Metarhizium anisopliae Sorokin isolates to selected insecticides and fungicides

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to assess the compatibility of the popular insecticides like spinosad, cypermethrin, imidacloprid and chlorantraniliprole as well as fungicides copper oxychloride, carbendazim and hexaconazole with native isolates of M. anisopliae (MC 2, MC 4, MC 7). Among the isolates, MC 2, MC 7 and MC 4 were found compatible with insecticides spinosad, imidacloprid and chlorantraniliprole as well as fungicide copper oxychloride. Isolates MC 2 and MC 7 exhibited highest growth with only 3.70 and 5.18 per cent inhibition in the PDA medium amended with highest dose of copper oxychloride (0.30 g/ l ) when compared to MC 4 (7.03 % inhibition). Among the three isolates tested, the isolate MC 7 was more compatible with highest growth at all higher doses of chlorantraniliprole (0.35 ml/L), spinosad (0.38ml/ l) and imidacloprid (0.15g/ l) by recording least per cent growth inhibition (11.00, 11.41 and 14.44 per cent inhibition respectively). The insecticide cypermethrin was slightly toxic to all the isolates of M. anisopliae and fungicides, carbendazim and hexaconazole were not compatible with the M. anisopliae isolates.