35. Food and feed consumption of lemon butterfly, Papilio demoleus under laboratory conditions

Abstract

The research studies were carried out from egg to adult stages of pest on host citrus lemon leaves and the collection was made from the lemon orchards inter-cropped with date palm orchards. A couple of male and female adult butterflies were released for eggs lying which were laid singly on tender twigs or under the surface of the leaves, oviposition usually takes place early morning hours then eggs were got separated in Petri dishes based on eight treatments that were replicated 3 times. When those eggs hatched in the first stage of larvae, were awarded weight food in grams for checking its proper food consumption. All larval stages were given fresh leaves as a source of food, weight in grams with an overall mean of 1^st instar’s (1.21 to 1.36), 2^nd (1.36 to 1.45), 3^rd (1.51 to 1.72) and 4^th (1.76 to 1.89), and 5^th (1.94 to 2.19). After consumption of food, the remaining food was measured in grams with the overall mean of 1^st instar’s (0.80 to 1.13), 2^nd (0.60 to 0.77), 3^rd (0.55 to 0.59), 4^th (0.55 to 0.58) and 5^th (0.51 to 0.58) in grams, respectively which were found significantly different to each other p=0.001. It was concluded that the larval stages of pest found voracious feeder of the citrus plants, therefore, it is recommended that these larval stages are capable to manage through IPM, techniques by which we can save the lemon orchards.

Keywords: Larval stage; Nourishments; Oviposition; P. demoleus; Voracious feeder

http://dx.doi.org/10.19045/bspab.2020.90039