A new medium for mass rearing of the sorghum stem borer, chilo partellus swinhoe (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) and its use in resistance screening

Details are given of a diet which has been successfully used for several seasons at ICRISAT, Hyderabad, India, to produce large numbers of Chilo partellus Swinhoe. The larvae are used for field infestation of sorghum in resistance breeding work and for production of adults for pheromone studies The diet is based on Phaseolus bean and sorghum leaf powder and gives recoveries of 52 to 74 percent of moths from introduced freshly hatched larvae. The larvae and adults produced are normal. The technique is particularly useful since it allows large numbers of moths to be produced at the start of the rainy season when field population of Chilo partellus are lo