Metodologia de criação massal da broca-do-café com novas dietas artificiais, e potencial de controle com fungos entomopatogênicos

Abstract

Coffee cultivation is of great economic importance for Brazil, and some phytosanitary problems that affect the coffee plants require greater attention in their control, a frequency of incidence, areas of occurrence and injuries/damage to plants affecting productivity. Among the main pests of coffee, the coffee berry borer Hypothenemus hampei (Ferrari) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae, Scolytinae) stands out. In the biological control methods of this pest, the use of entomopathogenic fungi stands out due to their ease of use, application and efficiency. In order to carry out research on entomopathogens, it is necessary to create a coffee berry borer mass that allows the use of a significant number of insects for this purpose. Thus, the objective of this work is to establish a methodology for mass rearing and maintenance of the coffee berry borer in artificial diets in the laboratory and to verify the control potential with entomopathogenic fungi. Mass rearing was carried out on an artificial diet with two incubation periods and, later, evaluation of the generation of total individuals on different diets. From the results it was verified that the modified diets of Villacorta and Barrera (1993) allowed the generation of more descendants of H. hampei with a mean total of 48,8 and 41,3 individuals/coffee berry borer after 60 days of incubation. With an incubation period of 80 days, 64 and 66 individuals/coffee berry borer were generated. Subsequently, two bioassays were carried out with 27 isolates of entomopathogenic fungi to assess confirmed mortality of H. hampei and from the results, isolates with mortality above 85% and commercial IBCB66 and IBCB425 were selected for lethal concentration and lethal time assays. The isolates of Metarhizium anisopliae IBCB353 and IBCB364 and the isolate NCTB 04 of Beauveria sp. caused more than 85% of confirmed coffee berry borer mortality. In the lethal concentration evaluations, the IBCB364 and 353 isolates showed higher lethality and in relation to the lethality time, the IBCB66 isolate was the most virulent, killing in the shortest time. The lethal concentration and dose assays compared to commercial isolates showed that these isolates have the potential to control this insect pest under laboratory conditions.