Nutrition of the Tobacco Budworm: an Economical Larval Diet for Rearing123

A new soy flour-grain oil formulation was more efficient and economical than the standard (soybean-wheat germ) larval diet used to rear Heliothis virescens (F.). Weights of larvae and pupae, percent pupation and adult eclosion, number matings per male, and number of eupyrene sperm per single mating were greater in insects reared on the soy flour-grain oil diet. The approximate costs of the standard (high agar) diet for rearing insects in cups or the modified standard (low agar) diet for mass-rearing in tray units are $0.47 and $0.30/liter, respectively. The cost of one liter of the new (low agar) formulation, in which wheat germ is replaced by grain oils, is $0.17 (with wheat germ oil) or $0.14 (with corn oil). The new diet also can be used successfully with both types of rearing container. The use of this diet in our laboratory would produce a savings of ca. $10,000/year.