Effect of preservation methods on viability of Beauveria bassiana

Beauveria bassiana, which can live in a wide ecology in the world and is one of the most widely used entomopathogenic fungi against agricultural pests, is one of the most researched organisms. In scientific studies, appropriate storage methods are developed in order to easily access the culture stocks and to preserve the fungal properties for long periods without deterioration. Although there are many storage methods developed for this purpose, they may vary according to the fungal organism. For this reason, there is a need for storage methods that preserve the characteristics of the organism in a healthy way. In this study, we evaluated the effect of 1-year preservation by 15% DMSO-freezing, 15% glycerol-freezing and subculturing on the growth, production and viability of spores and macro and micro morphology of two isolates of B. bassiana. The obtained data revealed that subculturing is a simple and applicable method for the healthy preservation of B. bassiana isolates. However, it does not seem possible to use this method due to the high risk of contamination, high labor requirement, high consumption and cost, and loss of time in case of storing a large number of cultures. In these cases, it has been determined that B. bassiana can be stored in the ultra-deep freezer at 35% glycerol at -135°C in the healthiest way.