• The Korean Journal of Pesticide Science
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.125-133
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• 2015

Entomopathogenic fungi have been studied to develop for biological control agents as an alternative to chemical control agents in insect pest management. Two Lepidopteran insects, Spodoptera exigua and Plutella xylostella, are serious insect pests infested various crops, but not effectively controlled by commercial chemical pesticides due to its high insecticide resistance. A fungal isolate was isolated from S. exigua larvae collected from green onion field in Andong, Korea. To identify the fungal isolate, 18srRNA sequence for internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and ${\beta}$-tubulin regions were sequenced. The ITS and ${\beta}$-tubulin sequence were highly matched to Beauveria bassiana and morphological characteristics also was fit to known B. bassiana. Finally, isolated fungus has identified as B. bassiana and named B. bassiana ANU1. The result of bioassay, median lethal concentrations were $2.7{\times}10^3$ and $0.9{\times}10^3conidia/ml$ and medial lethal times were 65.6 and 60.8 h to S. exigua and P. xylostella, respectively. B. bassiana ANU1 showed high pathogenicity to two insect pests from $20^{\circ}C$ to $30^{\circ}C$ at 50% relative humidity (RH) and more than 40% RH at $25^{\circ}C$ with $10^7conidia/ml$ of concentration.