Effect of diets on growth, oviposition and quality of the black soldier fly, Hermetia illucens L. (Diptera: Stratiomyidae)

Abstract

The black soldier fly, Hermetia illucens L. is efficient at consuming and converting organic wastes into biomass with high protein and fat which can be used in the animal feed industry. The objective of this research was to study the effect of different organic waste diets on growth performance, oviposition, and quality of the black soldier fly prepupa. The experiment was performed using a completely randomized design with four treatments, five replications per treatment, and 200 insects per replication. Treatments were four different diet groups. 1) Control group: a mixture of brewer’s grain and palm kernel meal 2) Protein group: a mixture of food waste, fruit + vegetable waste and brewer’s spent grain 3) Fat group: a mixture of food waste, fruit + vegetable waste and chicken skin, and 4) Fiber group: a mixture of food waste, fruit + vegetable waste and fermented bagasse. The results of proximate analysis showed that nutrient content of prepupa reared on four diet groups yielded 44-46% crude protein and 21-26% ether extract. The protein diet group gave the highest crude protein content of 46% in prepupa and a prepupa weighed 0.17 g, statistically significantly (P≤0.01) higher than that of groups fed by fiber (0.15 g/prepupa). The larvae grew rapidly, taking a short development time of 16.73 days and the survival rate of the larva was high at 95.50%. The sex ratio of males to females was 0.85:1.00. The fat diet was not a suitable diet for insect rearing. Although the weight of the prepupa fed on fat diet was as high as 0.183 g/one prepupa, the larval survival rate was the lowest at 63.80%, statistically significantly (P≤0.01) different from the other 3 diet groups. The larvae took the longest growth development time at 22.45 days.