Department of Entomology and Agril. Zoology, Faculty of Agriculture, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi-221005.
The effect of certain vegetables viz. brinjal (Solarium melongena L.), radish (Raphanus sativus), tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) and cauliflower (Brassica ole-racea var. botrytis) on the development of caterpillars of Diacrisia obliqua Walker were studied at Varanasi under laboratory condition. The development was completely inhibited on tomato leaves. Radish and mustard showed significant superiority over brinjal. The findings have indicated two possibilities (i) that the rate of consumption of the food its metabolism varies at the different age of the caterpillars and (ii) that the constituents of the host plants differ due to change in their age, which ultimately change the rate of ingestion and their metabolism. The another point which has come to light in the present studies is that the weight of the caterpillars has positive correlation with the length of the caterpillars. The difference in weight acquired due to food plants was apparent in caterpillars 8 days after hatching, but differences in length attained due to them were significant at subsequent observations and reverse was obtained at the last observations, when rate of ingestion was reduced, owing to their preparation to switch over to prepupal stage.
