Express methods of quality control of insect cultures — biological plant protection agents

Abstract

Goal. To develop new methods of quality control of insect cultures to increase the viability and productivity of biomaterial used in technical entomology programs for biological protection of plants and obtaining raw material producers. Methods. Methods of growing insects in optimal hygrothermal conditions for each species and methods of mathematical statistics (dispersion analysis) were used to process the obtained data. Experimental studies were carried out with artificial populations of insect cultures forming the collection of the Center for Mother Cultures of ETI «Biotekhnika»: grain moth (Sitotroga cerealella Olivier, 1789), wax moth (Galleria mellonella Linnaeus, 1758) and bug Perillus biosulatus Fabricius, 1775. Results. Analysis of the study of the issue of quality control of insect cultures indicated the need to find new effective methods and develop express methods for determining their condition. An approach based on the mechanisms of maintaining the homeostatic properties of artificial populations and their connection with the viability indicator was appropriate. The authors’ experimentally substantiated rule of the dependence of the intensity of the manifestation of insect taxis on viability can be considered as a criterion of population viability and used to control the quality of biomaterial. The effectiveness of controlling the viability of the Sitotroga cerealella culture based on the intensity of chemotaxis of larvae after hatching and the intensity of phototaxis of grain moth and wax moth cultures based on the intensity of penetration into the substrate was proven. The relationship between the intensity of trophotaxis of Perillus biosulatus to an atypical food stimulus and the culture viability indicator is shown. The effectiveness of using the method of selecting larvae by trophotaxis within 15 minutes to control the quality of the population is proven. Conclusions. The obtained results give reason to recommend the method of selection based on chemotaxis to an atypical food stimulus to increase the viability of the S. cerealella culture and the P. biosulatus bug. Phototaxis selection in G. mellonella culture increases its viability by 19.5%.