Virulence of Entomopathogenic Fungi Isolates against Green Ladybug Nezara viridula L. (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) Eggs

Abstract

Abstract Green Ladybug Nezara viridula L. spread in tropical and subtropical regions such as in America, Africa, Asia, Australia, and Europe. Imago N. viridula or nymphs attack the legume plants in the generative phase by piercing and sucking pods. So far, farmers are still using control technology in the form of chemical insecticide applications. Chemical insecticides are only able to kill the nymph and imago stages. Meanwhile, the egg stage is still able to survive and continue to grow because there are still a few chemical insecticide compounds that can thwart the hatching of eggs. Entomopathogenic fungi are one of the potential biological control agents for controlling N. viridula eggs. Because entomopathogenic fungi can infect all insect stages of eggs, nymphs or larvae as well as imago. This research was conducted using a Completely Randomized Design (CRD), with three replications and nine treatments (control, B. bassiana, M. anisopliae, and fungi isolates of Metarhizium sp., such as MetTmM, MetTrM, MetKM, MetKpP, MetKP, MetTrP). The results showed that the lowest percentage of eggs hatched due to MetTrP isolate reached 0%, but not significantly different from B. bassiana (10%) and MetKP isolate (11.67%). The highest percentage of hatched eggs was caused by MetTmM isolate which was 63.33% with the same conidia density which was 108 conidia/ml. All fungi isolate tested could infect N. viridula eggs.