Los hongos entomopatógenos en el control de las plagas de insectos

• Autores: Enrique Quesada Moraga
• Localización: Phytoma España: La revista profesional de sanidad vegetal, ISSN 1131-8988, Nº 144, 2002, págs. 41-48
• Idioma: español
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • The use of entomopathogenic fungi for control of insect pests has received an increasing interest in recent years, which is revealed by the number of commercial products available and under development. Fungi are unique and relevant among the insect pathogens in that they infect their host primarily through the integument. Therefore, they provide the only practical means of microbial control for insects feeding by sucking plant juices. Furthermore, the application of entomopathogenic Hyphomycetes provides a new strategy for the control of soil-dwelling insect pests, being some of them frequently isolated from the soil, where they found very optimal conditions for developing their maximum insecticidal activity. The development of commercially viable micoinsecticides as an alternative to chemical insecticides entails several steps, mainly fungal isolation from the environment, strain selection, studies of ecology, physiology and taxonomy, economical mass production, formulation, application strategies, and registration. However, a more efficient exploitation of entomopathogenic fungi in Crop Protection depends mainly on improving their virulence and speed of kill. It is likely that macromolecular insecticidal metabolites produced during the in vivo development of the fungal biocontrol agent, which sometimes are required for disease symptoms and contribute to inactivate the host defences, are the best targets for selecting and developing more effective fungal strains, and constitute by themselves a novel generation of bioinsecticides.