Skip to main content
ARS Home » Southeast Area » Gainesville, Florida » Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology » Insect Behavior and Biocontrol Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #321994
Title: Phytosanitary irradiation of Diatraea saccharalis, D. grandiosella, and Eoreuma loftini (Lepidoptera: Crambinae)

Author
item HALLMAN, GUY - International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
item Legaspi, Jesusa
item DARMAWI, DARMAWI - Cair-Batan

Submitted to: Florida Entomologist
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/2/2015
Publication Date: 10/1/2016
Citation: Hallman, G.J., Legaspi, J.C., Darmawi 2016. Phytosanitary irradiation of Diatraea saccharalis, D. grandiosella, and Eoreuma loftini (Lepidoptera: Crambinae). Florida Entomologist. 99(2):182-185.

Interpretive Summary: The sugarcane borer, Mexican rice borer and Southwestern corn borer are major insect pests that bore into sugarcane stems. Cut stems of sugarcane are marketed in various lengths from whole canes to much shorter pieces. All of these pest insects may bore inside sugarcane stems and be present as contaminants inside cut stems that are marketed. Scientists with USDA, Agriculture Research Service, Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology, Tallahassee, Florida, in collaboration with researchers from FAO/IAEA, Vienna, Austria, and CAIR-BATAN, Jakarta, Indonesia, evaluated the use of phytosanitary irradiation to reduce the risk of spreading invasive and native pest insects. This research supports the establishment of defined generic irradiation doses for moths which will assure effective sterilization of these products for marketing.

Technical Abstract: Phytosanitary irradiation (PI) is increasingly being used to disinfest horticultural commodities of invasive quarantine pests. Most disinfestation is done with generic treatments, where one dose is scheduled for a group of pests and/or commodities. The current generic treatment that USDA-APHIS uses for Insecta (400 Gy) does not include pupae of Lepidoptera. More data are needed to develop a generic dose for those Lepidoptera that pupate on shipped commodity, such as Crambidae. Tests were done with the crambins Diatraea grandiosella Dyar, D. saccharalis (Fabricius), and Eoreuma loftini (Dyar) (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) to seek doses that would provide quarantine security against late pupae but also last instar larvae, which would also serve for development of a generic PI dose that is less than the current 400 Gy. The results of this research support proposed generic doses of 250 and 400 Gy for larvae and pupae, respectively, of Lepidoptera, and suggest lower specific doses for the individual insects.