مطالعه زیست شناسی کرم ساقه‌خوار اروپایی ذرت، Ostrinia nubilalis (Hübner) (Lep.: Crambidae) روی چهار میزبان مختلف

The European corn borer Ostrinia nubilalis (Hübner) is a worldwide maize pest which causes serious damages to this crop directly and indirectly. Although maize (Zea mays L.) is the preferred major host for the insect, other crops can also be damaged. The present study aims to investigate some biological aspects of this pest on four different hosts. So, developmental time and mortality of immature stages as well as fecundity, percentage of emergence and longevity of adult moths were studied on stems of three plant host: maize cultivar SC-704, potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) cultivar Volvox and soybean (Glycine max (L.)) cultivar Harsoy-63 and a specific semiartificial diet (consisting certain amount of bean flour, wheat bran, beer yeast, premix, sugar, ascorbic acid, sorbic acid, glacial acetic acid, formaldehyde, agar and water) in laboratory condition (27±2ºC, 50-60% RH and photoperiod of 16:8 [L:D]). Incubation, larval and pupal period, longevity of male and female was 2.7±0.12, 18.4±0.22, 6.8±0.16, 7.3±0.26 and 8.5±0.22 days respectively on semiartificial diet with fecundity of 205.6±14.4eggs/female which had significant difference with potato and soybean. Also the lowest mortality during immature stages (13%) and the highest moth emergence (more than 90%) were recorded on semiartificial diet as well as maize stalk. These results showed that semiartificial diet, like maize stalk, are the appropriate host for this pest compared to the other two hosts. So it seems that our semiartificial diet, considering ease of rearing of pest on it, could be recommended as an economic susceptible host in the mass rearing purpose of this pest.