White halo fungus, Verticillium lecanii

Introduction

• Vertilcillium lecani commonly called as white halo fungus is found sprouting on the body of coffee green scale Coccus viridis. 
• It has been extensively studied against the pest in Lower Pulney Hills in Tamil Nadu. 
• The fungus is known to cause epizootic when the environmental conditions are favourable.

• The fungus is multiplied on cheap media for large scale production.  
• Sorghum grains devoid of pesticide residues (40 g) is washed in potable water and transferred to conical flask (250 ml) and 15 ml of distilled water is added. 
• The conical flasks are plugged with cotton and autoclaved for 20 min at 15 psi. 
• The flasks are allowed to cool and taken to laminar flow chamber for inoculation. 
• From a clean uncontaminated mother culture in slant loopful quantities of V. lecani spores are transferred aseptically. 
• The flasks are incubated at room temperature.  The spores are obtained in a fortnight.