Efficiency of Metarhizium anisopliae in the control of Meloidogyne incognita in banana and coffee crops

Abstract

Banana and coffee are crops damaged by the root-knot nematode (Meloidogyne incognita). Thus, the objective of this research was to study the efficiency of biological products in the control of M. incognita in both crops. Four experiments were carried out in a greenhouse, in a completely randomized design, inoculating banana and coffee plants with 2000 eggs and second-stage juveniles of M. incognita. In experiment 1, each plot was constituted of a banana seedling cv. Prata Anã. The treatments, applied around each seedling, contained the fungi Metarhizium anisopliae, from the collection kept in the Biological Control/CAPSA, IB, and Pochonia chlamydosporia (the commercial product Rizotec). In experiment 2, coffee seedlings cv. Arara were treated in a single dose with M. anisopliae and P. chlamydosporia. In experiments 3 and 4, coffee seedlings cv. Mundo Novo were treated alone or mixed with M. anisopliaeand Purpureocillium lilacinum. Based on the results obtained after 150 days of inoculation, it was concluded that M. anisopliae and P. chlamydosporia have usage potential for biological control of M. incognita in bananas and coffee. In the coffee crop, P. chlamydosporia showed 81% efficiency in reducing the population of M. incognita, whereas for M. anisopliae, the efficiency was up to 76.9%. However, there was no difference between treatments with biological control agents in relation to fresh root weight and dry weight of the aerial part of the coffee plants.