The biocide produced using millet grain based agro-medium is toxic to many insects but harmless to plants
A patent bearing No. 336230 has been granted for application No. 1627/DEL/2008 dated July 8, 2008 for the mass production of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) biocide using millet grain based agro-medium.
The patent has been granted to ICAR-VPKAS, Almora and the names of the inventors are M. Mohan, S.N. Sushil, J.C. Bhatt, S. Saha, H.S. Gupta and J. Stanley. The invention involves the process for the mass production of bio-insecticide, Bacillus thuringiensis and employs cost effective high yielding agro based medium consisting of finger millet grain powder, defatted soybean, etc for early, profuse sporulation.
The medium is supplemented with crop wastes to make it solid for mass production. The biocide has been found to be toxic to specific target insects, but is harmless to plants and other non-targeted organisms. Moreover, it is cold tolerant and can sporulate even at low temperatures.
The process followed in this invention makes use of locally, abundantly available agro-industrial by-products which significantly reduces the overall cost of technology in addition to providing environmentally safe insecticide.
