Chattisgarh Isolate of Entomopathogenic Fusarium SPP.

To isolate entomopathogenic fungi, naturally infected cattle ticks were collected from the body of animals and identified as Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus. Few ticks were found naturally infected with fungi with growth on their appendages, mouth parts with restricted movements on third day after collection. The mortality of ticks was observed on third to seventh day when hyphae covered their body surface. The fungus was identified morphologically as Fusarium spp. with hyaline filamentous hyphae and septate oval conidia. Its molecular characterization revealed similarity with Fusarium strain FW24 based on nucleotide homology and phylogenetic analysis. In vitro efficacy trials confirmed mortality of nymphal and adult ticks on 3^rd and 6^th day of infection, respectively. The egg hatch assay showed 10% hatchability on 30^th day post infection.