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METHODS FOR MASS REARING AND INVESTIGATING THE HOST RELATIONS OF APHIS FABAE SCOP.
Author(s) -
KENNEDY J. S.,
BOOTH C. O.
Publication year - 1950
Publication title -
annals of applied biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.677
H-Index - 80
eISSN - 1744-7348
pISSN - 0003-4746
DOI - 10.1111/j.1744-7348.1950.tb00968.x
Subject(s) - alate , aphis , biology , aphid , host (biology) , greenhouse , homoptera , horticulture , botany , agronomy , pest analysis , aphididae , ecology
A method is described for producing some hundreds of apterous and thousands of alate virginoparous Aphis fabae every day continuously throughout the year. Broad beans are used as the host plants, in a ‘production‐line’ arrangement of eleven ventilated breeding cages, with additional cages for starting subcultures and rearing alatae, all contained in a portion of a small greenhouse with supplementary lighting in winter. When running smoothly, the culture requires about half an hour's work by one man per day. An ‘aphid gun’, being a modified type of aspirator catcher, is described, with which large numbers of aphids could be handled and counted rapidly without damaging them. Amodified technique for host‐transference experiments is described, which permits individual leaves to be compared one with another as host‐units for the aphids. Two types of small metal cages are used, both easily attached to leaves in their natural positions on growing plants. One type confines the aphids to a part of a single leaf and is used mainly for determining relative reproduction rates on different leaves. The other type encloses equal areas of two different leaves between which the aphids can move freely, and is used for determining their behavioural preferences. The principles underlying the use of such cages, the experimental procedures and the interpretation of the results obtained are discussed.