author(s)
Kelwatkar NM, Kankale MD and Das SB

abstract
The present investigation was carried out during rabi 2013-2014 at the Entomology laboratory, College of Agriculture JNKVV, Jabalpur at Completely Randomized Design (CRD) to select a suitable and economic substrate for mass multiplication of Metarhizium anisopliae. The experiment on mass production studies was undertaken on fourteen substrates for determining a suitable medium for growth and sporulation. The observations were recorded on 10^th, 20^th and 30^th days after inoculation. Among the different substrates evaluated highest conidial count (4.47 × 10⁷ spores/ml) was observed on broken rice media followed by wheat husk (3.83 × 10⁷ spores/ml) and broken wheat (2.27 × 10⁷ spores/ml). It was also clear that M. anisopliae is able to grow on a variety of cheap and easily available grains; hence they can be used for the mass multiplication of the fungus and produced in bulk and can be made available at the doorstep of the farmers.