EVALUATION OF NEW FUNGAL ISOLATES AS BIOLOGICAL CONTROL AGENT AGAINST RICE BLACK BUG (Scotinophara coarctata) OF BLACK RICE VARIETY UNDER CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT

Rice Black Bug (Scotinophara coarctata) is a major pest of rice (Oryza sativa L.) which serves as the staple food of the Philippines. The study on biological control against rice black bug of black rice was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of the new fungal isolates. The study was designed using Complete Randomized Design (CRD) having nine treatments replicated three times. The treatments were negative control (no application). (control) Metarhizium. LBMD05. LBIMD08. LBrMD10, LBTML01. LBML03, LBSK10 and LBrMD03. The data gathered were the mortality percentage of rice black bug for 10 days after treatment application and morphological changes of RBB after spraying, LBrMD08 resulted with the highest mortality percentage until 5 days after treatment application. However, it started to decline in the succeeding days. On the other hand, LBrMD05 resulted in a much more comparable result to the control Metarhizium.