Abstract
The present research addressed spray-drying and air-drying techniques applied to Metarhizium robertsii blastospores to develop wettable powder (WP) formulations. We investigated the effect of co-formulants on blastospore viability during drying and assessed the wettability and stability of formulations in water. The effect of oxygen-moisture absorbers was studied on the shelf life of these formulations stored at 26 °C and 4 °C for up to 90 days. Additionally, we determined the virulence of the best spray-dried and air-dried formulations against the corn leafhopper Dalbulus maidis. While sucrose and skim milk played an essential role as osmoprotectants in preserving air-dried blastospores, maltodextrin, skim milk, and bentonite were crucial to attain high cell survival during spray drying. The lowest wettability time was achieved with spray-dried formulations containing less Ca-lignin, while charcoal powder amount was positively associated with formulation stability. The addition of oxygen-moisture absorbers inside sealed packages increased from threefold to fourfold the half-life times of air-dried and spray-dried formulations at both storage temperatures. However, the half-life times of all blastospore-based formulations were shorter than 3 months regardless of temperature and packaging system. Spray-dried and air-dried WP formulations were as virulent as fresh blastopores against D. maydis adults sprayed with 5 × 107 blastospores mL−1 that induced 87.8% and 70.6% mortality, respectively. These findings bring innovative advancement for M. robertsii blastospore formulation through spray-drying and underpin the importance of adding protective matrices coupled to oxygen-moisture absorbers to extend cell viability during either cold or non-refrigerated storage.
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Key points
• Cost-effective wettable powder formulations of M. robertsii blastospores were developed.
• Bioefficacy of formulations against the corn leafhopper was comparable to fresh blastospores.
• Cold storage and dual oxygen-moisture absorber are critical for extended shelf life.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Anderson Ramos for providing the insects for the bioassays and Fernanda Ramos from Unicamp for supporting us with the experiments conducted on the spray dryer.
Funding
The study is financially supported by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) [grant number 421629/2016–9]. The first author received a fellowship from the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) [grant number 2016/20610–6] during her PhD project.
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NSI, ID, and GMM planned the research and designed the experiments. NSI and SGM performed the experiments. NSI and GMM analyzed data. NSI, ID, JE, and GMM wrote the manuscript. All authors discussed results and commented on the manuscript.
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Iwanicki, N.S., Mascarin, G.M., Moreno, S.G. et al. Development of novel spray-dried and air-dried formulations of Metarhizium robertsii blastospores and their virulence against Dalbulus maidis. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 105, 7913–7933 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-021-11576-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-021-11576-5