Abstract

Soybean is one of the economically significant crops in the world and is cultivated over a large area in Krasnodar Krai (Russia). In recent years, the harmfulness of the cotton moth Helicoverpa armigera Hubner (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) has significantly increased for soybeans. The use of chemical insecticides leads to formation of resistance which can be prevented by bioinsecticides based on entomopathogenic baculoviruses. The aim of this research was to compare the biological efficacy of the Russian strains of the nuclear polyhedrosis virus (NPV) of cotton moth (CM) and the viral biological product Helicovex CK (Switzerland) and was conducted during 2020–2021. The treatment of the phytophage caterpillars and the comparison of the productivity of experimental strains, determined by the number of polyhedra formed per caterpillar were carried out under laboratory and field conditions. The experiments showed that the efficiency of the strain NPV CM M isolated from the caterpillars of the cotton moth selected on the tomato crops of the Federal Research Center of Biological Plant Protection in the laboratory and field did not significantly differ from the efficacy of the biological product Helicovex CK and amounted to 84.3–92.4%. In addition, the strain NPV CM M was distinguished by higher productivity and greater adaptability to storage in dried form than the strains NPV CM - 17 and NPV CM - 18. The productivity of the strain NPV CM M was 2.4–2.8 x 1010 polyhedra per one caterpillar, and the efficacy after one year of storage was 55.0%. The conducted studies revealed the possibility and prospects of using the Krasnodar strain.