Host plant preferences of populations of [cotton bollworm] Helicoverpa armigera (Hubner) (Lepidoptera : Noctuidae) from different geographic locations [Australia]
1990
Firempong, S. | Zalucki, M.P. (Queensland Univ., St Lucia (Australia). Dept. of Entomology)
Helicoverpa armigera in Australia is found in many different geographic locations and has been recorded on a large number of host plants. The nature of this polyphagy was investigated by offering moths from 6 different sources the same set of host plants in oviposition trials. Laboratory H. armigera ranked the plants offered into the following categories: most preferred - tobacco, maize, sunflower; least preferred - cabbage, pigweed and linseed; intermediate - soybean, cotton and lucerne. Moths reared from field-collected larvae showed a similar basic rank order, although there were a number of differences between populations. Further work will be needed to clarify if these small differences represent real geographic variation or simply reflect differences between batches of test plants. Tobacco and sunflower were consistently ranked highly by virtually all populations and, cotton, on which H. armigera is a major pest, was ranked very low. The possibility of exploiting the non-attractiveness of cotton in pest management is discussed.
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