Converting agricultural waste into value-added biopesticides to replace chemical pesticides for plant protection is a good alternative for environmental sustainability and resource recycling. In this study, five tropical wastes (cassava peels, banana pseudostem, coconut shell, sugarcane bagasse, and pineapple peels) were screened as substrates for the rapid production of biopesticide Trichoderma Brev T069. Five single tests and a Box-Behnken design (BBD) with response surface methodology were used to optimize the culture conditions to improve the spore yield. The results showed that cassava peel was the optimal solid fermentation substrate, and the optimization enabled a spore yield of 9.31 × 109 spores/g at 3rd day, which was equal to 93.19% of spore yield obtained at 5th day (9.99 × 109 spores/g). A newly packed-bed bioreactor with agitation and ventilation system was developed and used to expand the production that 250 kg of biopesticide (2.89 × 109 spores/g) could be available on the 3rd day. A pot experiment indicated that the biopesticide T. Brev T069 obtained under this production system, when applied at 1 × 107 spores/g of soil had a 64.65% biocontrol efficiency on banana fusarium wilt. This study provides a practical solution for turning a tropical waste into an effective biopesticide which can prevent banana wilt disease, thereby helping to reduce disease management cost and overcome environmental hazards caused by synthetic pesticides.
Keywords: Cassava peels; Fusarium wilt; Solid-state fermentation; Trichoderma brev; Tropical wastes.
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