Abstract

World population growth has generated a demand for increased healthy food production and the development of sustainable agricultural technologies to replace environmentally damaging farming practices, including the overuse of pesticides . Biological control using entomopathogenic fungi, as natural pathogens of arthropod pests, is an alternative method to meet this objective. Th ese fungi have been traditionally studied to control insects, but recent studies have begun to examine their activity as plant endophytes to protect plants against phytopathogens and improve other aspects of crop production. Th is chapter reviews the importance of these entomopathogenic fungi as endophytes in the context of biological control . Our studies focus on determining the ability of native strains of entomopathogenic fungi for endophytic colonisation and their potential application for the control of diseases in tomato . Th e chapter also discusses aspects to consider for their development as commercial biopesticides and suggests ways to make this control method available to producers of agricultural crops.