Contact Admin. Shipp, Y. Zhang, D. Hunt, G. This study investigated the influence of different humidity levels on percentage of infection by Beauveria bassiana Balsamo Vuillemin Hyphomycetes Botanigard Emulsifiable Suspension formulation on greenhouse insect and mite pests, and their commercially available biological control agents. The target insect and mite species were sprayed with B.
Results of this study showed that in petri dish trials, a humidity of On leaf surfaces, the differences in ambient humidity did not cause as great of variations in percentage of infection as in the petri dish trials.
Under high humidity conditions, whole greenhouse sprays with B. Tetranychus urticae Koch was not infected by B. Predatory mites can be used with B. Encarsia formosa Gahan, Eretmocerus eremicus Rose and Zolnerowich , and Aphidoletes aphidimyza Rondani need to be used with caution when B. Beauveria bassiana Balsamo Vuillemin Hyphomycetes is one of the most extensively studied entomopathogenic fungal species and is the active agent in many entomopathogenic products currently in use or under development worldwide Butt et al.
Beauveria bassiana is a potentially useful control agent for suppressing the population levels of several economically important insect species. Pest species that have been evaluated include sweet potato whitefly Bemisia tabaci Gennadius Wright , Carruthers et al. Marcandier and Khachatourians , and a variety of other insect pests of field crops Feng et al. Sivasankaran et al. Other studies, however, showed that infection of some pest species by B.
These observations suggest that ambient humidity may not be the same as the microenvironmental humidity immediately next to the insect or leaf surface Ramoska , Willmer In situ trials on living leaves indicated a possibility that the insect host and leaf substrate together contribute to create a zone of high humidity that supports fungal infection Wraight et al.
