Biology, Rearing, and A Trial Release of Apanteles flavipes in the Florida Everglades to Control the Sugarcane Borer12

Abstract

During 1963 Apanteles flavipes (Cameron), a small hymenopterous larval parasite of numerous pyralid and noctuid stem borers of sugarcane in the Indo-Australian area, was tested against the sugarcane borer, Diatraea saccharalis (F.), at Canal Point, Florida. Before release the life history and such factors as mating, oviposition, fecundity, adult longevity, sex ratio, hosts, and compatibility with Agathis stigmatera (Cresson), another larval parasite of the borer, were ascertained. A rearing procedure was also developed. More than 40,000 adults of A. flavipes were reared on the sugarcane borer in the laboratory and about 28,000 of these were released in commercial fields in the Everglades. A few held recovered were made 4 months after release, but none were recovered in 1964.