Nicolas S. Meneses III, Julius Martin C. Rivera, Robee G. Ybañez (March 2008)
Philippine Science High School Western Visayas Campus – Department of Science and Technology (DOST-PSHS WVC), Brgy. Bito-on, Jaro, Iloilo City 5000, Philippines
ABSTRACT
Sugarcane in the Philippines is attacked by numerous pests Stem borers are the most serious of these insect pests. Plants affected by this pest may be so badly damaged that the sugarcane grower has to remove them and replant Since borer caused such tremendous losses and since there were no commercial insecticides that could provide satisfactory control of the pest, both the government and the private sector were prompted to try biological control, using natural enemies against sugarcane borer.
Trichogramma is a biological control against sugarcane borers. Trichogramma lays its eggs in the eggs of Corcyra cephalonica and other stem borers. When the eggs of Trichogramma hatch, they will feed on the stem borer’s eggs. It is an egg parasitoid that kills the eggs of the pest before the insect hatch.
However, the relationship of the temperature on rearing of Trichogramma, and on the number of eggs a Trichogramma will parasitize has not been studied.
Our objectives are to determine the mean number and the relationship of the mean number of parasitized Corcyra cephalonica eggs by Trichogramma chilonis reared at three different temperatures (a) 27°C, (b) room temperature and (c) 33°C.
In our study we concluded that the rearing temperature range from 27° to 33º has no significant effect on the number of parasitized Corcyra cephalonica eggs by Trichogramma chilonis reared at these temperature ranges