Parasitism capacity of Trichogramma pretiosum Riley, 1879 and Telenomus remus Nixon, 1937 after ingestion of biological pesticides

Augmentative biological control (ABC) of insect pests is an environmentally sustainable alternative to synthetic insecticides. By performing BC, more than one control agent can be used for the same insect pest that is in different stages of its life cycle or for pests that simultaneously occur in the area. However, this relationship requires biosecurity for the control agents employed. The aim of this study was to evaluate the parasitism capacity of Trichogramma pretiosum Riley, 1879 and Telenomus remus Nixon, 1937 after ingestion of biological pesticides. The entomopathogens, Baculovirus Anticarsia gemmatalis nucleopolyhedrovirus (AgMNPV), Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) var. kurstaki, Bt var. aizawai, Beauveria bassiana, and Metarhizium anisopliae; the microbiological fungicide, Trichoderma harzianum, at concentrations recommended by the manufacturer; and a negative control (pure honey) were employed in this study. Further, forced ingestion was adopted, with the treatments mixed in honey and offered as food at two dilutions (one-part product: one-part honey and one-part product: nine parts honey). Each treatment consisted of 20 individual females for each parasitoid (T. pretiosum or T. remus). The following parameters were evaluated: female longevity, number of parasitized eggs, egg viability, and number of females and males to determine the sex ratio. For T. pretiosum, B. bassiana (1 × 1013 viable conidia 100 L H2O-1), and T. harzianum (5 × 1012 viable conidia 100 L H2O-1), the longevity of their females was reduced by the 1:1 mixture; however, this mixture did not interfere with other parameters and other biological pesticides compared to the respective controls of both dilutions. The biological pesticides did not negatively influence the parameters evaluated for T. remus. The tested products had low toxicity to the egg parasitoids, T. pretiosum and T. remus. Overall, more work is still required with parasitoids in other stages of development and with other exposure methods to confirm the selectivity of products for egg parasitoids to recommend its combined use in the field.