A Technique On How To Rear The Oriental Fruit Moth, Grapholita Molesta (Busck) (Coleoptera: Tortricidae)

Oriental fruit moth, Grapholita molesta (Busck), is one of the most important pests of fruit trees worldwide. Recently, this pest has brought increasingly serious damage and the control of it became more difficult. In view of this, it is important to drug resistance, the screening of efficiency and low toxicity pesticides and integrated control of oriental fruit moth from laboratory rearing to obtain a large number of test insects. This study was mainly designed to determine the effects of different rearing techniques and nutrient proportion in artificial diet on the development and reproduction of oriental fruit moth, and also investigated the effect of music on it. The results were as follows:1. The effects of different proportion on the development and reproduction of the oriental fruit moth was evaluated by measurement of parameters that included survival rate, duration of development, weight of larvae, weight of pupae, and longevity and fecundity of adults. The results showed that formulaⅣwas the most suitable for the development and reproduction of oriental fruit moth, such as, the survival rate, the weights of larvae and pupae, the longevity of female, the fecundity of adults, net reproductive rate, intrinsic rate of increase, finite rate of increase were increased significantly (P<0.05) and the duration of development, mean generation time and population doubling time were shortened significantly (P<0.05), compared with formulaⅠ, formulaⅠand formulaⅢ. In the four kinds of artificial diets, formulaⅣwas best for the development and reproduction of oriental fruit moth and could be used as a diet for artificial rearing in laboratory.2. We explored the use of different containers and densities to culture the oriental fruit moth in laboratory, in order to find the optimal combination of rearing containers and densities, at the same time provide references for mass rearing of oriental fruit moth. Effects of different rearing containers, diet sizes and larvae densities on the development and reproduction of oriental fruit moth were evaluated by survival rate, larval weight and pupal weight, longevity and fecundity of adults and so on. Compared with tubes (2cm×15cm), the survival rate, larval weight, pupal weight and fecundity of the test insects in circular rearing containers were significantly increased (P<0.01), and had better results than commonly used tubes (1cm×10cm) in laboratory, and operation was more easy and convenient. The circular rearing containers due to its good rearing effects, convenient and time-saving, could be used as an artificial rearing apparatus of mass rearing in laboratory.3. Effects of different lengths of time and music types on oriental fruit moth were evaluated. Longevity or fecundity of 30 min of light music was all lower than that of the control. There has significant differences of developmental duration treated by music (P<0.01), survival rates of both pre-pupa or pupa between the control and music treatments has no significant difference (P>0.05), and survival rate of larvae, weight of pupae, fecundity were all increased significantly (P<0.01). 90 min of light music or 60 min of heavy metal music had higher value on the life parameters of oriental fruit moth. The net reproductive rate (R0), innate capacity to increase (rm) , and finite rate of increase (λ) reached the maximum at 90 min of light music, the population doubling time (t) and mean generation time (T) reached the minimum at 90 min of light music. Music could be used as a supplement means for rearing oriental fruit moth.