Gassan Youssef^*(1)

(1). General Organization of Seed production, Homs, Syria.

(*Corresponding author: Dr. Gassan Youssef. E-Mail:ghassanyoussef@hotmail.com).

Received: 14/04/2018                                Accepted: 03/10/2018

Abstract

Life table studies for potato tuber moth, Phthorimaea operculella (Zeller) were carried out on three host plants namely; potato tubers, Solanum tuberosum L. (Potato), eggplant fruits, Solanum melongena L. (Aubergine) and green tomatoes, Solanum esculentum Mill (Tomato), to evaluate the preferred host plant for feeding Ph. operculella larvae. The calculated biological parameters were: Net reproductive rate of increase (R₀), generation time (G_t), intrinsic rate of increase (r_m), finite rate of increase (λ) and population doubling time (D_t). Obtained results indicated that potato tubers proved to be the quite favorable for achieving the highest developmental and multiplication rates of Ph. operculella, followed by eggplant meanwhile tomato was the least favorable. The natural mortality figures; Apparent Mortality (AM), Real Mortality (RM) and Indispensable Mortality (IM) for larvae reared on potato tubers were 20.73, 17.00 and 13.34%, respectively. Meanwhile, the highest mortality rates were 32.58, 29.00 and 18.36% when larvae were fed on eggplant fruits. It is quite worth to mention out here that potato tubers are considered as the most attractive for feeding and rearing Ph. operculella for research purposes followed by egg-plant. Tomato seem to be the least acceptable host plant.

Key words: Host plants, Life tables, Potato tuber moth, Phthorimaea operculella.

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