Refinement and evaluation of artificial diet for rearing of legume pod borer, Maruca vitrata Geyer (Lepidoptera: Crambidae)

The investigation on refinement and evaluation of artificial diet for M. vitrata, were carried out during 2014 and 2015 under walk in plant growth chamber established at ARS, Gulbarga, Karnataka, India. Comparison of developmental parameters of three successive generations of M. vitrata reared on different diets revealed that, maximum survival of egg, larva and pupa was 78.4 ± 3.1, 67.6±5.5 and 73.0±5.0 respectively in modified D-OOD diet and was superior over rest of the diets (D-OOD, D-New and D-OO) while it was on par with natural host plant. Maximum fecundity of 62.34±4.1 eggs/female was observed in refined D-OOD diet was on par with pigeonpea host plant and superior over other diets. Biology studies of Maruca on refined artificial diet in comparison with natural host plant pigonpea were revealed that, incubation period (2.6 ± 0.46 and 2.85 ± 0.40 days), total larval duration (14.28± 1.02 and 14.78±1.52 days), pupal period (9.41±0.70 days and 10.33±1.08 days) did not vary significantly between modified diet and natural host. Fecundity in refined artificial diet was 66.00 ± 4.00 and it was 65.99± 7.02 eggs on natural host plant. Per cent egg hatching was almost same in both the cases.