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Effects of carbon and
nitrogen sources and ratio on the germination, growth and
sporulation characteristics of Metarhizium anisopliae
and Beauveria bassiana isolates
Uzma Mustafa and Gurvinder Kaur*
Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology
Guwahati, Guwahati-39, Assam, India.
*Corresponding author.
E-mail: gurvinder@iitg.ernet.in.
Tel.: +91 361 2582207. Fax: +91 361 2582249
Accepted 1 August, 2009 |
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The entomopathogenic fungi Metarhizium anisopliae and
Beauveria bassiana are ubiquitous and widespread with
well documented broad-spectrum myco-pesticidal effects. It
has been reported that nutrient source is an integral
determinant of growth and virulence of entomopathogenic
fungi. Nutrient based studies also impart light towards the
identification of most commendable media for laboratory
assays as well as selection of the tolerant isolates. With
such a perspective, an in-vitro study was undertaken
to evaluate conidial germination, mycelial growth and spore
yield of fourteen M. anisopliae and seventeen
B. bassiana isolates and the effect of different
carbon and nitrogen sources on these characteristics were
studied. The different isolates showed significant variation
with respect to the differing preference for the nutrient
sources. From this study it was inferred that isolate UM2 (M.
anisoplaie) and AB1 (B. bassiana) exhibited
commendable growth potentials on almost all the nutrient
sources studied, and were basically more robust isolates and
holds high affirmations for commercial usage as
biopesticides.
Key
words:
Metarhizium anisopliae, nutrition, germination,
growth, sporulation, Beauveria bassiana. |
