Laboratory Assessment of Affordable Culture Media for the Propagation of Entomopathogenic Fungi, Used in Mycopesticide Production

Abstract

Attempts are made to identify novel materials for the mass production of entomopathogenic fungi, Metarhizium anisopliae (Mets.) which are extremely cheap and can be used as alternative media components. Wheat bran, rice bran, tamarind extract and milled rice have been tested as cheap growth media. Among the five different media tested, highest wet and dry biomass of 25.2±0.13g/100ml and 1.15±0.1 g/100ml was recorded for the milled rice medium whereas the least was observed for rice bran medium. Significant differences in conidiospore production were observed for the different cheap media. Tamarind solid media recorded the maximum spore count of 27.8 x10⁴ spores/ml . The viability and spore count was higher in the solid media compared to the broth media. cheap media and low-tech mass production methods have to be developed so as to supply the fungal pesticides at an affordable cost.