I want to make the culture of the Helicoverpa armigera (Fruit worm of Tomato, Tobacco, Cotton) but do not know how can I prepare the culture of it.
H. armigera larvae are cannibalistic and therefore they should be reared individually or in space-offering-recipients. We have used individual Petri dishes with a filter paper on bottom and a 1cm3 cube of semi artificial diet. Last instars are able to lift the lid, so put weight on the upper Petri. (we piled up 20-30).The larvae were changed 2 or 3 times per week to new containers with fresh diet (very time consuming). We also used ice box like containers with an overall mesh lid. We poured semi artificial diet in each "cell" , sterilized the surface with 12 W UV lamp at short distance during 20 min and added, when cooled down, one larva per "cell".
We tried the following diet (Poitout & Bues, 1970, and modified it for tests):
680 ml distilled water, 20g agar-agar (boil water and dissolve agar), take away from the heat source and add at once 112g corn flour, 28g wheat germ powder, 30g beer yeast powder, than mix the remaining 4g ascorbic acid, 1g nipagine, 0,8g benzoic acid and add them when the diet has less than 56ºC. Stir well.
Pour the diet in a clean glass container, sterilize the diet surface under a UV lamp, then cover with a sheet of paper towel (to absorb humidity ). keep it in the fridge and cut out squares when needed to feed the larvae.
In alternative, we partially substituted the corn (maize) flour with 480 ml tomato concentrate (saltless) and then only added 60g of flour, using only 400ml of distilled water.
Soya flour also works very well, gives you heavier pupae and quicker development but was under our conditions more expensive.
The agar agar must not be for analysis. It is the most expensive part.
We have reared H.armigera for 9 years.
Take care of parting on a large number of field collected (wild) larvae you first rear to adults. Eliminate all parasitoids which appear. You can separate the Noctuid sexes by observing the pupae at the last segments of the abdomen. Wait for the fully melanized stage of the pupae to do so. You then can put them into two different containers and couple the hatching adults in small containers. We used bottoms of plastic water bottles, 12 cm high and covered with a plastic Petri lid. the bottom of the container was covered with a disc of filter paper (to absorb droppings), then had a container with sugar solution, 10%, covered with a perforated plastic film to avoid drowning of adults. The inner upper surface of the bottle container received a circular paper film made from register paper roll and fixed with self adhesive film. The adults oviposit on that paper you can remove every day if you are interested in oviposition dynamics and overall counts. Adults might live for 4 weeks and if fed will oviposit.
Follow a pedigree planning, forming couples of 3 females and 2 males - if you have lots of insects, or 2 females and 1 male, and separate the offspring into "lines" to avoid incest (consanguinity), as H. armigera turns sterile latest in the 3rd generation if under consanguinity condition. At 24+ -1ºC, 65%RHA, you'll have an average generation time of 35 to 42 days (depending on female or male hatching).
Good luck!
http://zsp.com.pk/pdf2/447-450%20(9).pdf
http://www.fao.org/docs/eims/upload/agrotech/2011/hanpvmanual-pt1.pdf
H. armigera larvae are cannibalistic and therefore they should be reared individually or in space-offering-recipients. We have used individual Petri dishes with a filter paper on bottom and a 1cm3 cube of semi artificial diet. Last instars are able to lift the lid, so put weight on the upper Petri. (we piled up 20-30).The larvae were changed 2 or 3 times per week to new containers with fresh diet (very time consuming). We also used ice box like containers with an overall mesh lid. We poured semi artificial diet in each "cell" , sterilized the surface with 12 W UV lamp at short distance during 20 min and added, when cooled down, one larva per "cell".
We tried the following diet (Poitout & Bues, 1970, and modified it for tests):
680 ml distilled water, 20g agar-agar (boil water and dissolve agar), take away from the heat source and add at once 112g corn flour, 28g wheat germ powder, 30g beer yeast powder, than mix the remaining 4g ascorbic acid, 1g nipagine, 0,8g benzoic acid and add them when the diet has less than 56ºC. Stir well.
Pour the diet in a clean glass container, sterilize the diet surface under a UV lamp, then cover with a sheet of paper towel (to absorb humidity ). keep it in the fridge and cut out squares when needed to feed the larvae.
In alternative, we partially substituted the corn (maize) flour with 480 ml tomato concentrate (saltless) and then only added 60g of flour, using only 400ml of distilled water.
Soya flour also works very well, gives you heavier pupae and quicker development but was under our conditions more expensive.
The agar agar must not be for analysis. It is the most expensive part.
We have reared H.armigera for 9 years.
Take care of parting on a large number of field collected (wild) larvae you first rear to adults. Eliminate all parasitoids which appear. You can separate the Noctuid sexes by observing the pupae at the last segments of the abdomen. Wait for the fully melanized stage of the pupae to do so. You then can put them into two different containers and couple the hatching adults in small containers. We used bottoms of plastic water bottles, 12 cm high and covered with a plastic Petri lid. the bottom of the container was covered with a disc of filter paper (to absorb droppings), then had a container with sugar solution, 10%, covered with a perforated plastic film to avoid drowning of adults. The inner upper surface of the bottle container received a circular paper film made from register paper roll and fixed with self adhesive film. The adults oviposit on that paper you can remove every day if you are interested in oviposition dynamics and overall counts. Adults might live for 4 weeks and if fed will oviposit.
Follow a pedigree planning, forming couples of 3 females and 2 males - if you have lots of insects, or 2 females and 1 male, and separate the offspring into "lines" to avoid incest (consanguinity), as H. armigera turns sterile latest in the 3rd generation if under consanguinity condition. At 24+ -1ºC, 65%RHA, you'll have an average generation time of 35 to 42 days (depending on female or male hatching).
Good luck!
There is an artificial diet developed by Abassi et. al 2007 on Tapioca examined over five consecutive generations which is 2.1 times less than the cost of rearing on the agar-based artificial diet.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/42369427_Rearing_the_cotton_bollworm_Helicoverpa_armigera_on_a_tapioca-based_artificial_diet
Article Rearing the Cotton Bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera, on a Tapi...
You candownload the book untitled: The Laboratory culture and development of Helicoverpa armígera wrote by: N. J. Armes, G. S. Bond, R. J. Cooter, you can try at this website: http://books.google.co.in/books/about/The_Laboratory_culture_and_development_o.html?id=oewnAQAAMAAJ
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