Isolation and evaluation of the entomopathogenic fungi investigated against the leafhopper Jacobiasca lybica (Hemiptera : Cicadellidae ) under laboratory conditions

The control of leafhopper populations is often based on the extensive use chemical insecticides that are known for many side effects on non target organisms, environment, human health and food safety, therefore, the use of entomopathogenic fungi provides a promising biocontrol alternative against the leafhopper. During our study, we investigated, isolated, and evaluated the efficiency of entomopathogenic fungi against Jacobiasca lybica under laborartory conditions. The fungi were isolated from leafhopper collected from a vineyard in the Berkane Province of Morocco, and then they were identified according to micro and marcoscopic aspects before they were tested to evaluate their efficiency against this leafhopper. Our results indicated the presence of many species of fungus that were morphologically different. Four fungi were chosen by their different macroscopic aspects for further identification and pathogenicity tests. The species were identified as C2, C3, C12 and C13 (for intellectual property reason). The pathogenicity test had shown that C3 was the most developed fungus during the five days of the study. This promising result indicated that entomopathogenic fungus selected had shown some effectiveness to develop faster on leafhoppers which can be a possible biological control to use as an integrated management against J. lybica.