Produção de Beauveria bassiana em meio líquido

Abstract

Biological control involves the use of natural enemies to control pest populations. Entomopathogenic fungi are capable of infecting and causing diseases in insects and other arthropods and are commonly associated with the natural control of many pests. Beauveria bassiana is an entomopathogenic ascomycete fungus, and its large-scale fungal biomass production can be achieved through three basic fermentation processes: liquid fermentation, solid-state fermentation, or biphasic fermentation. However, liquid fermentation is not commonly used, despite being an effective and easily controllable method. Therefore, this study aimed to produce Beauveria bassiana through liquid fermentation and evaluate the efficiency of conidia production in different culture media. The strain was isolated from a commercial product based on B. bassiana using the serial dilution technique followed by plating on Petri dishes. After isolation, macroscopic and microscopic morphological evaluations were conducted before subjecting the strain to liquid fermentation. The fermentation experiments were carried out in Erlenmeyer flasks with a total volume of 150 mL, constant agitation at 150 rpm, and a temperature of 28 ± 2ºC for 10 days to obtain the conidia growth curve in the two tested media: Minimal Medium (MM) and Potato Dextrose (PD). Among the two media, the best result was achieved in MM, with a conidia concentration of 7.75x108 conidia/mL on the 10th day of growth. In PD medium, the cultivation favored the production of hyphae and blastospores, and therefore, the results were discarded.