U.S. Department of Agriculture: Agricultural Research Service, Lincoln, Nebraska
Date of this Version
3-1975
Citation
Copyright 1975. All rights reserved
Abstract
BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY
Distribution
The recorded distribution of the European corn borer, Osttinia nubilalis, has not changed significantly since Brindley & Dicke's review in 1963 (15), except along the southernmost portion of its range. Annual articles presenting the status of the European corn borer (3) indicate that each year the borer spreads into a few previously uninfested counties within known infested states. Sparks & Young (116) made a survey and found 34 of 35 counties infested in southern Georgia and concluded that the borer probably was present in all areas of extensive com production in Georgia. Light-trap records from Tifton, Georgia, indicate that the borer's seasonal life history is very similar to its life history in South Carolina (31) and in Alabama (32). There are three complete generations each year and a fourth-generation completes development in most years. Although official records do not show the presence of the borer in Florida, records from the southern tier of counties in Alabama (H. F. McQueen, personal communication) and in Georgia (116) indicate that com-growing areas of the Florida panhandle probably are infested. Showers, Reed & Brindley (109) conducted laboratory studies and concluded that the Georgia borer had adapted to the photoperiod-temperature interaction of the region and was capable of producing large numbers of moths for the summer and autumn generations.
Chiang (20) studied the dispersion of the borer in Minnesota and in South Dakota from 1945 to 1970 and suggested that after the initial invasion in 1943, two distinctly different populations could have invaded Minnesota, one in 1952 and one in 1966. Chiang & Hodson (21) concluded that populations in the Waseca, Minnesota, area were kept at relatively low levels by environmental factors, but that with favorable temperatures, the borer populations could return to an economically significant level.
Comments
Annual Review of Entomology Vol. 20, 1975