Abstract—Setothosea asigna van Eecke also called as nettle caterpillars is an important defoliator of oil palm which under severe infestations, its might cause significant decrease of fruit production. The serious damage caused by the caterpillar has become a reasonable reason for oil palm grower to use insecticides to control the pest, which inevitably cause serious damages to the environment. Microbial insecticide, especially the one developed from indigenous entomopathogen, should be considered as better alternative to control the insect. In this research, viruses infecting Setora nitens and Setothosea asigna, was transmitted through their body sap to second instar of S. asigna. The virus was serially diluted from 10-1 to 10-8 and sprayed to oil palm leaves used to feed 30 larvae of S. asigna. The results showed that S. nitens and S. asigna viruses could infect larvae of S. asigna and developed viral infection in the larvae. Serial dilution resulted different end point dilution for both viruses, 10-6 for S.nitens and 10-8 for S. asigna. This finding suggested that infected larvae of S. nitens and S. asigna are very practical to be used as bioinsecticide to control nettle caterpillars.

Index Terms—oil palm, setora nitens, setothosea asigna, entomopathogenic virus, sap dilution.

Cite: Suparman, Y. Pujiastuti, Hisanori Bando, and Shin-ichiro Asano, "Serial Dilution of Nettle Caterpillar Viruses Applied as Bioinsecticide against Setothosea Asigna van Eecke (Lepidoptera:Limacodidae) the Important Pest of Oil Palm," Journal of Advanced Agricultural Technologies, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 136-140, December 2014. Doi: 10.12720/joaat.1.2.136-140