Preparation and Evaluation of Zeolite Nanoparticles as a Delivery System for Helicoverpa armigera Nucleopolyhedrovirus (HaNPV) against the Spodoptera litura (Fabricius, 1775) Larvae

Abstract

Synthetic insecticides frequently cause pest resistance and destroy non-target organisms. Thus, virus formulation is an issue that deserves considerable attention in developing virus-based insecticides. The hindrance of using nucleopolyhedrovirus alone as a virus-based insecticide is due to slow lethal time, though its mortality remains high (100%). This paper reports the formulation of zeolite nanoparticles as a delivery system to accelerate lethal time in controlling Spodoptera litura (Fabr.). Zeolite nanoparticles were prepared using the beads-milling method. The statistical analysis was carried out by a description exploration method with six replications. The occlusion bodies’ concentration in the virus formulation was 4 × 107 OBs in 1 mL medium. Zeolite nanoparticles formulation sped up the lethal time significantly (7.67 days) compared to micro-size zeolite (12.70 days) and only nucleopolyhedrovirus (8.12 days) and received acceptable mortality (86.4%). The zeolite nanoparticles delivery system provides an alternative formulation for nucleopolyhedrovirus with a significantly improved speed of killing the virus while maintaining suitable efficacy of the virus preparation in terms of the prevalence of mortality.