Screening indigenous mycopesticides for DBM control.Field efficacy of Bba5653,Impact of Bba5653 on cabbage yield,Cost-effective production of Bba spores.

1. Mycopesticide development for vegetables
Ignace Godonou and Braima James
Presentation at 2009 R4D week, IITA, Ibadan
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Problems
 Vegetables are prone to severe pest attack
 Prevalence of inappropriate pesticide regimes
 Health hazard and environment pollution
The need
 Increase farmer access to biological pesticides
Our response
 Develop, field-test and promote mycopesticides

2. Research tasks
 Identify and collect diseased pest specimens
 Isolate and culture entomopathogens
 Screen candidate pathogens for virulence
Damaged
 Select potential pathogens candidate cabbage
 Develop formulations & delivery systems
 Demonstrate field efficacy of product
 Assess safety and eco-toxicology of products
 Register product for commercialization

3. Screening indigenous mycopesticides for DBM control
Virulence trials
 Indigenous (Benin) strains of
entomopathogenic fungi against DBM;
Source: IITA microbial collections
40
Bba virulence test
 Hosts = other Lepidoptera: Acigona
%Cummulative dead larvae with external growth of
35
sp, Sesamia calamistis, Eldana 30
Bba5653
saccharina
Bba5644
25 Ma182
Bba5645
fungus
Bba5654
20
 Beauveria bassiana (6): Bba14,
Bba14
Bba5655
15 Ma178
Bba5644, Bba5653, Bba5654,
SDW
Untreated
10
Bba5655 (PDA plated, SDW + 5
Tween80 harvested and applied) 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
 Metarhizium anisopliae (2): Ma178,
Days after treatment
Ma182 (SDA plated, SDW + Tween80
Bba5653 is most virulent strain;
harvested and applied) has good potential against DBM
 Inoculum concentration @ 108
conidia/ml; 3rd instar DBM/leaf

4. Field efficacy of Bba5653
 Spores produced in dry powder form
16
 1g of powder contains 1011 spores 14
Bba FPR trials on DBM
12
Nombre of live DBM larvae/plant
Solitaire + Bba 5653
 1g powder in 1l TW + Tween80 10
Tween80 + Bba 5653
(TWT)/or in 1l TW + Solitaire (TWS) as 8
Untreated
emulsifier 6
Talstar
4
 HV spray of TWT/TWS formulations: 2
0
- 750ml/7.2 sq m bed = 1,041l per ha
2 5 8 11 14 17 20 23 26 29 32 35 38 41
Days after application
- Dose/bed =7.5 x1010 (=1015 spores/ha)
Application frequency of Bba5653 was 50% < bifentrin (= Talstar)

5. Impact of Bba5653 on cabbage yield
 DBM population
- DBM better controlled in Bba plots
- Pesticide resistance to Talstar?
60
- Poor quality Talstar? Water-based formulation of
Bba5653
Emulsion-base formulation of
50 Bba5653
 Cabbage yield
Untreated
Talstar
40
- 44t/ha under Bba5653
Cabbage yield (t/ha)
- 15t/ha under Talstar 30
- 3x more yield with Bba 20
 Product promotion 10
- Experiential learning by farmers 0
- Awareness/news media coverage Treatment
- IITA MoU with NGO-Songhai for regional promotion
- IITA MoU with FAES-Dakar for commercial production

6. Cost-effective production of Bba spores
Locally available substrates
 Rice as solid substrates used in Bba 5653 production
 Alternatives to rice as solid substrates needed
 Screened cassava starch (CS) & oil palm kernel cake (OPKC)
 80% CS mixed with 20% OPKC is most suitable alternative to rice
1.6E+09
1.4E+09
Number of conidia/g of substrate
1.2E+09
1.0E+09 80%CS+20%OPKC
75%CS+ 25%OPKC
66.67%CS+33.33%OPKC
8.0E+08
57%CS+43%OPKC
50%CS + 50%OPKC
6.0E+08 100%CS
4.0E+08
2.0E+08
0.0E+00
Treatments

7. To move this forward…
 Bba5653 (with a few other Bba isolates) is a Green Muscle spin-off
scientific breakthrough that holds great promise in vegetable production
 There is a strong need to reduce disconnects between such publicly
funded breakthroughs & their delivery to poor small holder farmers
 Private sector interest may be dampened by low level profit
 Explore R4D partnership models with specialized NGOs in which:
- IITA increases range of biopesticides; assures sustainable supply of the
products in the short to medium term; conducts markets studies to
quantify demand & profitability; links with ARIs for product safety & eco-
toxicological research required to develop registration dossiers
- NGOs advocate policy support for regional biopesticide regulatory
framework; market & return % of sales to IITA for further biopesticide
research; develop capacity to produce biopesticides under IITA
supervision; assure sustainable access of farmers to the products
Thank you