Can Beauveria bassiana (Bals.-Criv.) Vuill. Control the Key Fruit Pests of the European Chestnut Tree, under Field Conditions?

Abstract

The chestnut moth (Cydia splendana Hübner) and the chestnut weevil (Curculio elephas Gyllenhal) cause serious damage to European producers and companies that transform and market the chestnut. The objective of the present work was to evaluate, under field conditions, the possibilities of Beauveria bassiana (Bals.-Criv.) Vuill. to infect and kill the larvae of the two main carpophagous pests of European chestnut, in treatments directed at the soil. For this purpose, the surfaces of vases were sprayed with two concentrations of conidia/mL 5 × 107 (T1) and 1 × 108 (T2). The control (T0) was sprayed with distilled water. Larval mortality and infection were evaluated on five dates (D8 to D220). Confirmation of the fungus present in the larva was performed by molecular analysis. The results obtained are promising for the use of B. bassiana as a biological control agent against these key pests of the chestnut crop. There were no significant differences in mortality between the T1 and T2 modalities, however, they were significantly higher than the control. In the case of total mortality (dead and infected larvae), no significant differences were observed for C. elephas either. In the case of C. splendana, the T2 modality obtained better results in terms of total mortality.