Life Cycle, Behaviors and Control of Bamboo Shoot Borer, cyrtotrachelus dichrous, by Entompathogenic Nematode, Steinernema carpocapsae

Abstract

The experiments were carried out in three Amphoes of Tak province, North of Thailand during May 1993 and October 1994. For life cycle studies, a couple of male and fermale adults of Cyrtotrachelus dichros were released in a field net cage that securely sealed around a young bamboo shoot aged 1.5-2 and the rearing for the study was in vivo. The total borer underwent the univoltine life cycle with the egg duration of 2 days. The total larval duration were 8-15 (x = 12.23+2.05) days and possessed four instars of which consecutive stadia were 2-3 (x = 2.2+0.38) days , 2-3 (x=2.9+0.63) days pupation was in soil for 7-9 months. The adult emerged after the first heavy rain of the rainy season in Many with the adult duration of 1-2 (x = 1.5+0.59) months.
The behaviors on mating, sex attraction oviposition, feeding, pre-pupation and pupation site searching were discussed in details in this paper
The control of the borer was successful by soil application of the entompathogenic nematode, Steinernema carpocapsae, at 10 replications of 4 treatment rates: 0, 2x10, 4x10 and 8x10 individual nematodes per soil surface area of 10m. The average mortality corresponding with the treatments were 10, 40, 80 and 100 percent respectively.