Plant Water Stress Affects the Feeding Performance of American Bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) on Cotton Plants
Plant Water Stress Affects the Feeding Performance of American Bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) on Cotton Plants
Muhammad Irfan Ullah1*, Muhammad Arshad1, Muhammad Imran Khan1, Muhammad Afzal1, Azhar Abbas Khan2, Syed Muhammad Ali Zahid1, Muhammad Saqib1, Asad Abdullah1, Saba Kousar1 and Maryam Riaz1
ABSTRACT
American bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera (Hub.) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) is a major insect pest in cotton crop and is being the most noxious one in cotton growing areas of the world. Knowledge about how water stress modifies the ability of plants to resist against insect feeding is an interesting and important component in an integrated pest management program. In the present study, water stress was applied to field grown cotton with two Bacillus thuringiensis transgenes (CIM-602 and CIM-599) and one non-transgenic genotype (CIM-554) for the performance of H. armigera feeding The difference in leaf injury, relative consumption and growth rate of H. armigera was detected among experimental factors and their interactions. The leaf injury caused by H. armigera was higher (38.5 cm2 and 30.5cm2) on non-transgenic genotype at high and low moisture levels of plants respectively. Similarly, the relative growth and consumption rate of H. armigera was higher on non-transgenic genotype compared to transgenic. Overall the performance of H. armigera feeding was greater on high-watered leaves compared to water stress leaves. The results showed that the performance of H. armigera was superior on non-transgenic compared to transgenic genotypes at high-watered plants.
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