The tarnished plant bug, Lygus lineolaris, has become an increasingly important cotton pest due to changes in control practices for lepidopterans (i.e. introduction of Bt cotton and more specific insecticides) and following boll weevil eradication. High density populations of L. lineolaris develop in wild host plant areas, which are restricted in intensively agricultural regions, before moving into cotton. Previous work has evaluated controlling wild host plants for the area-wide management of L. lineolaris. Microbial control agents may provide another option for controlling these populations with reduced environmental impacts. Entomopathogenic fungi offer the greatest potential of the microbial control candidates for controlling L. lineolaris due to their contact mode of action and L. lineolaris’ piercing sucking mouthparts. An ideal mycoinsecticide would have low impact on non-target species, high virulence to L. lineolaris, and high environmental stability. New isolates of Beauveria bassiana have been obtained from indigenous L. lineolaris populations that have greater virulence to L. lineolaris than commercially-available isolates. The specificity of these isolates are being evaluated using representative beneficial insects including; ladybugs (Hippodamia convergens), pirate bugs (Orius insidiosis), lacewings (Chrysopa carnea), praying mantids (Tenodera aridifolia sinensis), and parasitic wasps (Anaphes ioles). New formulation strategies are being evaluated for B. bassiana involving the use of lignin-coated spores, which greatly improve spore survival following exposure to solar radiation.
Species 1: Moniliales Moniliaceae Beauveria bassiana (white muscardine fungus)
Species 2: Heteroptera Miridae Lygus lineolaris (tarnished plant bug)
Keywords: mycoinsecticides, formulation
Back to Ten-Minute Papers, Section Cc. Insect Vectors in Relation to Plant Disease, Ce. Insect Pathology and Microbial Control, Ca. Biological Control
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Back to The 2003 ESA Annual Meeting and Exhibition