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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Soil Application of Metarhizium anisopliae JEF-314 Granules to Control, Flower Chafer Beetle, Protaetia brevitarsis seulensis

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Pages 139-147 | Received 19 Jul 2019, Accepted 20 Feb 2020, Published online: 11 Mar 2020
 

Abstract

Root-feeding Scarabaeidae, particularly white grubs are considered among the most harmful coleopteran insect pests in turfgrass. In this work, sixteen entomopathogenic fungal species were assayed against flower chafer beetle, Protaetia brevitarsis (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) and Metarhizium anisopliae JEF-314 showed high virulence. The control ability of the isolate JEF-314 has been in detail tested for a model insect flower chafer beetle. Further analyses showed insect stage-dependent virulence where the fungal virulence was the highest against smaller instar larvae. Additionally, we confirmed that millet-based solid cultured granule was effective against the soil-dwelling larval stage. The isolate also showed a similar ability for a representative pest (Popillia spp.) in laboratory conditions. Our results clearly suggest a high potential of M. anisopliae JEF-314 to control the flower chafer beetle, possibly resulting in controlling of root-feeding white grubs in turfgrass. Based on the insect life cycle and susceptibility to the fungus, late spring and summer time would be the optimum time to apply JEF-314 granules for an effective control. Further characterization of the efficacy of the fungus under field conditions against the Scarabaeidae beetles might provide an efficient tool to control this beetle in an environment-friendly way.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Mr. Sunghyun Kim at Rural Development Administration for providing a colony of flower chafer beetle and information how to rear the insect in an insectary.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by General and Integrated Research for Pine Wilt Disease of the Korea Forest Research Institute, Republic of Korea.