Effect of host plants on biology of Spodoptera littoralis (Boisd.)

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Plant Protection Department, Faculty of Agriculture. Al-Azhar Univ. Egypt

Abstract

An experiment was carried out to evaluate the effect of using different host plants Castor bean, Clover, Cabbage, Broad bean, Sugar beet, and Cotton as foods for Spodoptera littoralis (Boisd.) larvae on certain biological aspects of the insect. The study was achieved under laboratory conditions of (25 ± 1°C) and 75 ± 5 % R.H. for obtained results and statistical analysis cleared that the developmental stages, fecundity, and life parameters were affected by the different hosts whereas the shortest larval duration (18 ± 0 days) was recorded for larvae fed on clover and the longer (25.2 ± 0.37 days) resulted when larvae were offered sugar beet. The pupation percentages on sugar beet leaves were lowest (58.4 ± 2.38 %) and highest pupation percentages were (78.4 ± 1.08 %) when larvae fed on clover leaves. Moreover, adult emergence Percentage was (98 ± 0.45 %) in both clover and broad bean (95.58 ± 0.61 %) on sugar beet. The moths produced from larvae fed on broad bean laid the highest number of eggs (1915 and 1847 eggs per female) in both generations, respectively and the least numbers of eggs deposited were (1081 and 994 eggs/female) on cabbagein the two generations, respectively.

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