Rhizospheric spp. Exhibit Miticidal Efficacy against (Acari: Tetranychidae) of Tea.

(Acari: Tetranychidae), popularly known as red spider mite (RSM) is one of the major pests of commercial tea ( (L.) O. Kuntze) plantation world over. Many attempts have been made in the past to control this devastating pest using a variety of microbial bioagents, however, area-wise field success is very limited. We carried out an in vitro study to explore the potential of rhizospheric spp. ( BAC1, LB22, and AB22) against through adulticidal and ovicidal activity. The 100% adult and egg mortality was observed with bacterial suspension (1 × 10 CFU/mL) by AB22, showing the lowest LC values for both adults and eggs of , i.e., 0.28 × 10 and 0.29 × 10, respectively. The study also throws some insights into the underlying mechanism through electron microscopy study and identification of some putative pesticidal metabolites from all the species. The three species were observed to have four commonly secreted putative bioactive secondary metabolites, brevianamide A, heptadecanoic acid, thiolutin, and versimide responsible for their bio-efficacy against . The outcome of our study provides a strong possibility of introducing spp. as a biological miticide and developing synthetic metabolites mimicking the mechanistic pathway involved in microbial bioefficacy.