Private An attempt was made to identify, evaluate and standardize entomopathogenic fungi for control of Helicoverpa armigera. During survey, for fieldbean pod borer incidence, 7 fungal infected larvae were collected and as many as seven fungal isolates were isolated form dead and infected larvae and they were designated HAF-1, HAF-2, HAF-3, HAF-4, HAF-5, HAF-6 and HAF[1]7. Based on colony and conidial morphology all fungal isolates were characterized up to genus level. The isolates HAF - 4, HAF - 6 and HAF - 7 were characterized as Penicillium sp, HAF - 1 as Asperigillus sp., HAF - 2 as Metarhizium sp., HAF - 3 as Nomuraea sp., and HAF – 5 as Beauveria sp.,. Further, all fungal isolates were screened against III instar larvae of H. armigera to assess their pathogenicity. The HAF-5 (Beauveria sp.) showed significantly superior infection in resulting highest per cent mortality to the tune of 60.50 percent followed by HAF-2 with 55.00 per cent mortality. Further, in the experiments to establish lethal time for 50 per cent and 99 per cent larval mortality response between H. armigera and HAF – 5 at six spore concentrations against III instars larvae of H. armigera using aqueous formulation. Among the six spore concentrations of HAF-5 evaluated, lower lethal time of 7.47 days was observed at 108 spore concentration/ml followed by 107 spore concentration/ml (8.26 days) and the maximum medium lethal time (LT50) of 22.15 days was observed at 103 spore concentration/ml. Similarly, low LT99 values of 10.57 days were observed at 108 spore concentration/ml followed by 107 spore concentration/ml indicating the mean lethal time of HAF-5 against III instar larvae of H. armigera decrease with increase in concentration of spores per ml. However, there was no significant decrease in lethal time where the low spore concentration per ml was used.
