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SUGAR-CANE BORER Diatraea saccharalis (Fab.) -- Lepidoptera,
Crambidae (Contacts) -----
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That he was
justified in his assumptions is borne out by the fact that a very efficient
parasitoid, The Amazon fly, Metagonistylum
minense, was first found not
in sugarcane, but in a wild host plant, in a primitive plant community deep
in the Amazon basin. Before importing
the Amazon fly, Myers had been active in the introduction of a tachinid fly
parasitoid of Diatraea, Lixophaga diatraeae, from Cuba into the Lesser Antilles. The first attempt failed, according to
Myers, because it was mostly a single handed effort lacking a full time
experience worker on the receiving end.
Later during March to May 1932, Myers along with his assistant L. C.
Scaramuzza and some highly trained workers consisting of a Spaniard, two
Cubans, a Portuguese and a Haitian, sent nearly 7,000 puparia of the
parasitic fly to the entomologists.
Mr. H. E. Box in Antigua and Mr. Mestier in St. Kitts via the rather
new Pan American Airways flights. The
spread of the fly and the progress of parasitism were rapid. The next year this tachinid was sent to
St. Lucia with similar results, and has since been introduced to many other
areas (DeBach 1974). Dr. Myers spent
several years in nearly continuous exploration. Five separate major journeys were made in northern South
America. His itinerary was as
follows: leaving headquarters in
Trinidad he proceeded to Para (= Belem), Brazil, from which he crossed one of
the mouths of the Amazon to the great island of Marajo and then returned to
Para exploring the Moju River. Thence
he proceeded up the Amazon to the Trapajoz River and up it to Fordlandia and
back, continuing up the Amazon to Manaos.
From there he branched on to the Rio Negro and Rio Branco to the
Brazilian border of British Guiana.
From there by the headwaters of the Ireng and the Mazaruni Rivers he
proceeded in a circular route to Mt. Roraima in Venezuela, returning by the
Venezuelan and Brazilian savannahs to the Uraricuera River which flows into
the Rio Branco. There, because of
lack of communication with Manaos, he returned to the Brutish Guiana border
and walked down the cattle trail to the coast, exploring all host plant
associations for sugar cane borer parasitoids en route. Altogether about 800 miles were covered on
foot, which according to Myers was "a method of progression which offers
the best conditions for entomological work, and one which ought to be adopted
more generally were the time available." Except for this long trek on foot the entire trip was on water. DeBach (1974)
mentioned that Myers had more than his share of the three main difficulties
in such South American travel, namely river rapids, disease and shortage of
food. On occasion he was deserted
under difficult conditions but of all the varied helpers he had, he
considered the Indian aborigines to be especially hardworking, intelligent
and efficient as entomological assistants.
Myers' wife shared much of his work but she was forced to return to
England late in 1931 with severe malaria contracted in the delta of the
Orinoco River. All Amazon fly
parasitoids were collected near Santarem on the Amazon in 1933 and
essentially all local transport was by water. Virtually all the parasitoid puparia were collected by means of
boats or canoes from Diatraea
infesting the floating grass beds of Paspalum
repens, which reach their
maximum development in the vicinity of Santarem. Other parasitoids also were present but were already known
elsewhere and because in this area of the lower Amazon and lower Rio Branco, Diatraea was scarce on
sugarcane, it seemed possible that the Amazon fly might play an important
role in this scarcity. At the height
of the campaign a small fleet of boats was engaged. Locally a small motor launch, a small sailing boat and 11
dugout canoes were used, employing as many as 40 collectors. A 26-ft. launch, which could withstand the
heavy seas of the lower Amazon, was bought to make the round trip journey,
carrying parasitoids from Santarem to Para every two weeks as no other
reliable transport was available on a regular basis. The entire population of the lower Amazon
was amazed to see the launch successfully make trip after trip through the 50
miles of treacherous open water before Para. The arrival of the
launch in Para, 470 miles from Santarem, was arranged to coincide with the
weekly commercial airline flight from Para to Georgetown, British Guiana,
where the parasitoids were to be colonized.
This flight took one day, so with the judicious use of ice, the pupal
parasitoids could be kept for up to a maximum of 13 days and still be
unemerged and healthy by the time of their arrival in Georgetown. There was a total of 6 shipments sent
during August-October 1933, with about 3,000 parasitoid puparia. They were received in Georgetown and
colonized by Mr. L. D. Cleare, who also cultured many more in the
insectary. By March 1934, only a
little over six months after the first shipment was made from the Amazon, the
tachinid parasitoid was recovered in some numbers from six different release
fields in two localities, and has since widely established (Myers 1935). Recent attempts to
control Diatraea saccharalis have involved the
introduction and mass release of the Peruvian race of Paratheresia claripalpis
Wulp. which has a shorter life cycle than the native race (Hagen & Franz
1973). In Venezuela efforts against Diatraea
spp. which resulted in 50% damage reduction following the introduction of Metagonistylum minense Townsend (Clausen
1978). Apanteles flavipes
(Cam.) was introduced and achieved up to 62% parasitization in south central
Brazil (Macedo 1983). In Brazil four
laboratories and 23 multiplication units were established by the Programa
Nacional de Melhoramiento de Caña de Azucar, for the mass rearing and release
of Apanteles flavipes and tachinid
parasitoids for sugarcane borers. In Pakistan,
Simmonds (1976) pointed out that nothing really tangible resulted from many
subsequent investigations concerning Apanteles
flavipes parasitizing
graminaceous moth borers in Pakistan.
In 1959-61 some 70,000 larvae of various species of such borers were
carefully examined at the Pakistan Station of the Commonwealth Institute of
Biological Control. The only apanteles (not typically flavipes Cam.) obtained was
from Sesamia sp. in Typha
angustata (Bory &
Chanb.), a wild marsh plant. Hence, A. chilonis (Mun.) was introduced from Japan, bred and
liberated. Immediately there were
recoveries of Apanteles from
Chilo partellus in maize.
These increased considerably over the next two years and Apanteles is now an important
element in the parasitoid complex of Chilonis
in Pakistan. On submitting material
of these initial recoveries for determination they were called A. flavipes-- a species common in south India and which had
in the past been recorded from the Punjab.
A. flavipes and A. chilonis were closely examined together and attempts made
to interbreed them. However, they
were distinct species and the material from Pakistan is A. flavipes,
which was not recorded prior to the introduction of the Japanese
material. The puzzle is that
apparently A. chilonis was introduced and
there immediately followed a spectacular establishment, and from a complete
absence of Apanteles spp. in
Chilo in Pakistan, there
developed a condition where an Apanteles
became a common parasite of Chilo
partellus in Pakistan. But this species is A. flavipes
and not A. chilonis. There is no satisfactory explanation for
this (Alam et al. 1972, Simmonds 1976). For further detail
on biological control effort and biologies of host and natural enemies,
please also see the following (Box 1928a,b, 1933, 1935, 1939a,b, 1952, 1953,
1960; Holloway et al. 1928, 1932; Plank 1929, Jaynes 1930, 1932, 1933, 1938,
1939; Scaramuzza 1930, 1933, 1939a,b, 1952, 1958, 1960; Myers 1931, 1934;
Tucker 1936, 1939, 1951; Bartlett 1937, 1940, 1941; Townsend 1938, Cleare
1939, 1941; Holloway & Mathes 1940, Ingram et al. 1940, Ingram &
Bynum 1941, Scaramuzza & Ingram 1942, Dias de Souza 1943, Flores-Caceres
1952, Gallo 1952, Charpentier & Mathes 1953, Charpentier 1954, 1956,
1958, 1959; Angeles & Paredes 1960, Charpentier et al. 1960, Simmonds
1960, Avasthy 1962, Miskimen 1962, van Whervin 1963, Bennett 1965, Saxena
& Dayal 1965, Gifford & Mann 1967, Altieri et al. 1999). REFERENCES: [Additional references may be
found at: MELVYL
Library ] Alam, M. M., F. D. Bennett & K. P.
Carl. 1971. Biological control
of Diatraea saccharalis in Barbados by Apanteles flavipes Cam. and Lixophaga
diatraeae T.T. Entomophaga 16: 15-. Alam, M. M., M. N. Beg & M. A. Ghani. 1972.
Introduction of apanteles
spp. against graminceous borers into Pakistan. Tech. Bull. Commonw. Inst. Biol. Contr. 15: 1-10. Altieri, M. A. et al. 1999. Classical
biological control in Latin America:
Past, present and future. In: Bellows, T. S. & T. W. Fisher (eds.), Handbook of Biological Control: Principles and Applications. Academic Press, San Diego, New York. 1046 p. Angeles, N. J. & P. P. Paredes. 1960.
La mosca amazonica (Metagonistylum
minense Towns.) en la región
de Urena, Edo. Tachira. Agron. Trop. (Maracáy) 10:
125-28. [English summary]. Avasthy, P. N. 1962. Biological control of the insect pests of
sugarcane-- A review. Indian
Sugar (Calcutta) 12: 345-48; 351-58. Bartlett, K. A. 1937. Introduction and colonization in Puerto
Rico of sugarcane moth borer parasites.
Puerto Rico Agric. Expt. Sta.,
Agric. Notes 78. 8 p. Bartlett, K. A.
1940. The collection of
parasites of the sugarcane borer, Diatraea
saccharalis, in Sao Paulo,
Brazil. 6th Pacific Sci. Cong. Proc.
(1939) 4: 335-38. Bartlett, K. A.
1947. The biology of Metagonistylum minense Tns., a parasite of the
sugarcane borer. Puerto Rico
Agric. Expt. Sta.
Bull. 40: 20 p. Beg, M. N.
1974. Bionomics of Diatraea spp. in the Bahamas and laboratory studies on
host-parasite relations in Trinidad, W.I.
Ph.D. Thesis, Univ of the West Indies. 215. p. Bennett, F. D. 1965. Tests with parasites of Asian graminaceous
mothborers on Diatraea and
allied genera in Trinidad.
Commonwealth Inst. Biol. Control. Contrib., Tech. Bull. 5: 101-16. Box, H. E. 1925. Puerto Rican cane grubs and their natural
enemies. Puerto Rico
Univ. J. Agric. 9: 291-353. Box, H. E. 1928a. The introduction of braconid parasites of Diatraea saccharalis Fabr. into certain of the West Indian
Islands. Bull. Ent. Res. 18: 365-70. Box, H. E. 1928b. Observations upon Lixophaga diatraeae
Townsend, a tachinid parasite of Diatraea
saccharalis Fabr. in Puerto
Rico. Bull. Ent. Res. 19: 1-6. Box, H. E. 1933. Sugar-cane moth borer (Diatraea) investigations.
Report upon the introduction and establishment of the Cuban parasite, Lixophaga diatraeae Townsend.
Antigua Colon. Devlpmt. Fund. 40 p. Box, H. E. 1935. The biological control of the sugar cane
moth borer in the Leeward Islands.
Trop. AGric. (Trinidad) 12:
89-96. Box, H. E. 1939a. Biological control of Diatraea saccharalis
(Fabricius) in St. Lucia, B.W.I.
Internatl. Soc. Sugar Cane Technol. Proc. 6: 223-40. Box, H. E. 1939b. Some aspects of the campaign against the
moth borer (Diatraea saccharalis Fabr.) in Antigua
and St. Kitts. Internatl. Soc. Sugar
Cane Technol. Proc. 6: 495-513. Box, H. E. 1952a. Investigaciones sobre los taladrodores de
la caña de azucar (Diatraea
spp.) en Venezuela. El proyecto del
combate biológico. Venezuela Inst.
Nac. Agric. Bol.
Tech. 5. 52 p. Box, H. E. 1952b. Palpozenillia
palpalis (Aldr.) a tachinid
parasite of sugar cane moth borers (Castania
and Diatraea). Hawaii. Ent. Soc. Proc. (1951) 14: 485-90. Box, H. E. 1953. The control of sugar-cane moth borers (Diatraea) in Venezuela--a
preliminary report. Trop. Agric.
(Trinidad) 30: 97-113. Box, H. E. 1960. Status of the moth borer, Diatraea saccharalis F. and its parasites in St. Kitts, Antigua and
St. Lucia, with observations on Guadaloupe and an account of the situations
in Haiti. Internatl. Soc. Sugar Cane
Technol. Proc. (1959) 10: 901-14. Charpentier, L. J.
1954. Successful establishment
of sugarcane borer parasites in Louisiana in 1953. Sugar Bull. 32: 120,
125. Charpentier, L. J.
1956. 1954 studies of
parasites for sugarcane borer control in Louisiana. J. Econ. Ent. 49:
267-68. Charpentier, L. J.
1958. Recent attempts to
establish sugarcane borer parasites in Louisiana. J. Econ. Ent. 51:
163-64. Charpentier, L. J.
1959. Recent studies of
parasites of the sugarcane borer at the Houma, La., Laboratory. Amer. Soc. Sugar Cane Technol. Proc.
6: 76-81. Charpentier, L. J. & R. Mathes. 1953. Further attempts
to colonize the sugarcane borer egg parasite, Telenomus alecto,
in Louisiana. Sugar Bull. 31: 196. Charpentier, L. J., W. J. McCormick & R. Mathes. 1960.
Biological control of the sugarcane borer in Louisiana. 10th Internatl. Cong. Soc. Sugar Cane
Technol. Proc. (1959): 865-69. Clausen, C. P. (ed.). 1978. Introduced
parasites and predators of arthropod pests and weeds: a world review. USDA Agriculture Handbk 480> Washington, D. C. 545 p. Cleare, L. D. 1939. The Amazon fly (Metagonistylum minense
Towns.) in British Guiana. Bull. Ent.
Res. 30: 85-102. Cleare, L. D. 1941. The Amazon fly under drought conditions in
British Guiana. Trop. Agric.
(Trinidad) 28: 131-34. DeBach, P. 1974. Biological Control by Natural
Enemies. Cambridge University Press,
London & New York. 323 p. Dias de
Souza, H. 1943. A broca da cana de acucar e seus parasitos
em campos, estado do Rio de Janeiro. Inst. Expt. Agric. Bol. 4. 22 p. [English summary]. Flores-Caceres, S. 1955.
Combate biológico del barrenador de la caña de azucar. Agric. Technol. (México) 1:
16-37. Gallo, D. 1952. Contribucao para
o controle biologico da broca de cana de azucar. Sao Paulo Univ. Esc. Super. Agric. Ann. 164:
135-42. Gifford, J. R. & G. A. Mann. 1967. Biology, rearing
and a trial release of Apanteles
flavipes in the Florida
Everglades to control the sugarcane borer.
J. Econ. Ent. 60: 44-7. Hagen, K. S. & J. M. Franz. 1973. A history of
biological control. p. 433-76. In: R. Smith, T. E. Mittler & C. N. Smith
(eds.), History of Entomology. Ann. Rev.,
Inc., Palo Alto, CA. 517 p. Holloway, T. E.
1939. Introduction and
recoveries of parasites of sugar cane insects in the continental United
States. Internatl. Soc. Sugar Cane
Technol. Proc. 6: 258-63. Holloway, T. E. & R. Mathes.
1940. The Amazon fly, Metagonistylum minense, a parasite of the
sugarcane borer. J. Econ.
Ent. 33: 738-42. Holloway, T. E., W. E. Haley, U. C. Loftin & C. Henrich. 1928.
The sugar-cane moth borer in the United States. U. S. Dept. Agric. Tech. Bull. 41. 76 p. Holloway, T. E., W. E. Haley & E. K. Bynum. 1932.
Receiving parasites of the sugarcane borer in Louisiana. J. Econ. Ent. 25: 68-70. Ingram, J. W. & E. K. Bynum.
1941. The sugarcane
borer. U. S. Dept. Agric. Farmers'
Bull. 1884. 17 p. Ingram, J. W., T. E. Holloway & J. W. Wilson. 1940.
Recent developments in biological control of Diatraea saccharalis
in the continental United States. 6th
Pacific Sci. Cong. Proc. (1939) 4:
359-63. Jaynes, H. A. 1930. Notes on Paratheresia claripalpis
van der Wulp, a parasite of Diatraea
saccharalis Fabr. J. Econ. Ent. 23: 676-80. Jaynes, H. A. 1932. Collecting parasites of the sugarcane
borer in South America. J. Econ.
Ent. 25: 64-8. Jaynes, H. A. 1933. Parasites of sugarcane borer in Argentina
and Peru, and their introduction into the United States. U. S. Dept. Agric. Tech. Bull. 363. 26 p. Jaynes, H. A. 1938. Introduction and recovery in Florida and
Louisiana of parasites of the sugarcane borer. J. Econ. Ent. 31:
93-5. Jaynes, H. A. 1939. Further attempts to establish Lixophaga diatraeae (Towns.) and other sugarcane borer parasites in
Louisiana and Florida, with recoveries in 1936 and 1937. Internatl. Soc. Sugar Cane Technol. Proc.
6: 246-58. Macedo, N. 1983. Control biológico
de plagas de caña de azucar. Informe
Agropecuario 104: 20-23. Metcalfe, J. R. 1960. The introduction of larval parasites of
moth borer [Diatraea saccharalis (F.)] into
Barbados. A progress report. Bridgetown, Dept. Sci. Agr. Barbados. 9 p. Miskimen, G. W. 1962. Studies on the biological control of Diatraea saccharalis F. (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) on St. Croix, U.
S. Virgin Islands. Puerto Rico
Univ. J. Agric. 46: 135-39. Myers, J. G. 1931. Preliminary report on investigations into
the biological control of West Indian insect pests. Empire Market. Bd. 42.
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11: 191-95. Myers, J. G. 1935. Second report on an investigation into the
biological control of West Indian pests.
Bull. Ent. Res. 26: 181-252. Plank, H. K. 1929. Natural enemies of the sugar cane moth
stalkborer in Cuba. Ann. Ent. Soc.
Amer. 22: 621-40. Saxena, A. P. & R. Dayal.
1965. Efficiency of Cuban fly
(Lixophaga diatraeae Tns.) against
sugarcane borers. Indian Sugar
(Calcutta) 15: 83-6. Scaramuzza, L. C. 1930. Preliminary report
on a study of the biology of Lixophaga
diatraeae Tns. J. Econ. Ent. 23: 999-1004. Scaramuzza, L. C. 1933. Prospects for the
control of the sugarcane moth stalk-borer (Diatraea saccharalis
Fab.) in Cuba by means of natural enemies.
6th Ann. Conf. Assoc. Sugar Cane Technol. Cuba,
Proc.: 87-93. Scaramuzza, L. C. 1939a. The introduction
of Theresia claripalpis V. de W. into Cuba,
and its artificial multiplication.
Internatl. Soc. Sugar Cane Technol. Proc. 6: 589-95. Scaramuzza, L. C. 1939b. The introduction
and establishment in Cuba of Metagonistylum
minense, parasite of the
sugar cane borer. 13th Ann. Conf.
Assoc. Sugar Cane Technol. Cuba Proc.:
295-98. Scaramuzza, L. C. 1952.
La mosca cubana. Informe sobre
la introducción de Lixophaga
diatraeae Towns., la mosca
cubana, para el control biológico del barenno de la caña en el Peru. Soc. Nac. Agric. (Peru). 19
p. Scaramuzza, L. C. 1958. Achievements in the
biological control of the sugar cane boarers, Diatraea spp. (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) in the
Americas. 10th Internatl. Cong. Ent.
Proc. 4: 845-50. Scaramuzza, L. C. 1960. Damage by the sugar-cane borer in
Louisiana and Cuba. The importance of
biological control. Internatl. Soc.
Sugar Cane Technol. Proc. (1959) 10:
938-42. Scaramuzza, L. C. & J. W.
Ingram. 1942.
Results attained in the biological control of Diatraea saccharalis
(F.) in Florida. J. Econ.
Ent. 35: 642-45. Simmonds, F. J.
1960. The successful
biological control of the sugarcane moth-borer, Diatraea saccharalis
F. (Lepidoptera, Pyralidae) in Guadeloupe, B.W.I. 10th Cong. Internatl. Soc. Sugarcane Technol. Proc.
(1959): 914-18. Simmonds, F. J.
1976. Some recent puzzles in
biological control. Entomophaga
21: 327-32. Townsend, C. H. T.
1938. Notes on the attempted
establishment of Paratheresia
in Louisiana. J. Econ.
Ent. 31: 632. Tucker, R. W. E. 1936. Parasites introduced into Barbados for
control of insect pests. Barbados
Agric. J. 5: 1-22 Tucker, R. W. E. 1939. Introduction of dry area race of Metagonistylum minense into Barbados. Barbados Agric. J. 8: 113-31. Tucker, R. W. E. 1951. A twenty-year record of the biological
control of one sugar cane pest. Internatl.
Soc. Sugar Cane Technol. Cong. Proc. 7:
343-54. van Whervin, L. W.
1963. The biological control
of the moth borer Diatraea saccharalis (F.), with special
reference to Lixophaga diatraeae Tns. a preliminary
report. Barbados
Min. Agric. Bull.
35. 22 p. |
