BIOLOGICAL CONTROL OF THE GREEN APPLE APHIDS Aphis pomi (DeGeer) (Homoptera: Aphididae) WITH TWO FUNGAL ENTOMOPATHOGENS

Sarhan, A.T.; H. Baji, S.

	BIOLOGICAL CONTROL OF THE GREEN APPLE APHIDS Aphis pomi (DeGeer) (Homoptera: Aphididae) WITH TWO FUNGAL ENTOMOPATHOGENS
IRAQ JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE
Article 1, Volume 14, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 0-0
Authors
A.T. Sarhan; S. H. Baji
Abstract
The green apple aphid, Aphis pomi (DeGeer) remains a real threat for apple and causes huge damage in spite of the annual pesticide application conducted against this pest. The biological methods have been used against economic insects. Two fungi were isolated from naturally infected green aphids collected from apple leaves in AL- Saniya region, Al-Qadisiya district–Iraq. The identified fungi were Alternaria porri and Fusarium sp. The effect of these two fungi on the apple leaf aphids was evaluated during the spring season -2002. A suspension of the fungal spores at the concentration of 3.5 x 105 spores / ml was sprayed weekly on the apple leaves infested with aphids from the first week of March until the third week of April, 2002. It was found that the average mortality of aphids on the treated leaves with A. porri were ranged between 52.4% and 93.3%, and with Fusarium sp. were between 21.5% and 39.6%, as compared with control (water treatment) which were between 11.4% and 23.3% in March and April-2002 respectively. The field results were confirmed with a laboratory experiment, in which the average mortality of aphids on the treated leaves with A. porri was 95.2% and with Fusarium sp. was 43.4% as compared with control which was 32.6%.

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