The parasitoid Trichogrammatoidea armigera Nagaraja (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae) is a potential candidate for biological control of the millet head miner Heliocheilus albipunctella (de Joannis) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) in the Sahel

Parasitism of Locally Recruited Egg Parasitoids of the Fall Armyworm in Africa

“…was supported by early findings suggesting that Trichogramma ability to parasitize S. frugiperda was not affected once reared on related Ephestia kuehniella Zeller species [21,26,27]. The eggs of C. cephalonica were irradiated to halt their development and avoid the cannibalization of eggs by hatched larvae from unparasitized eggs as described earlier [31]. Irradiation of eggs was performed in a dark chamber under UV light 4 W tube (UVP, USA, 254 nm) for 45 min at a distance of 3 cm.…”

“…was initially started from field-collected eggs of FAW in a sorghum field on the ICRISAT campus, Sadore in late 2018. The colony was maintained using the method described for the mass-rearing of related species Trichogrammatoidea armigera Nagaraja (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae) [31]. Eggs were kept in Petri dishes in the laboratory under the above-mentioned temperature and humidity conditions until the emergence of adults.…”

Field performance of the parasitoid wasp, Trichogrammatoidea armigera (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae) following releases against the millet head miner, Heliocheilus albipunctella (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) in the Sahel

“…Additionally, laboratory performance of trichogrammatid can be indicative of field performance as indicated by Coelho et al (2016). In the laboratory, T. armigera was found to parasitize nearly 80% of MHM eggs (Karimoune et al 2018). These results suggest strong potential for the use of T. armigera in augmentative releases for MHM control.…”

“…They have a short cycle, high reproductive potential, and are usually inexpensive and easy to produce in large numbers on eggs of factitious hosts (Li 1994;Greenberg et al 1996;Parra 2010;Wang et al 2014;Jalali et al 2016). Recently, the parasitoid Trichogrammatoidea armigera Nagaraja (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae) was observed to parasitize 12.4% and 17% of MHM eggs in the field in Senegal and Niger, respectively (Karimoune et al 2018;Sow et al 2018). Although parasitoids of the genus Trichogrammatoidea (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae) are less studied than the related genus Trichogramma (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae), they share similar features (Smith 1996) and are both successfully used in augmentative biological control (Newton 1988;Newton and Odendaal 1990;Mohamed et al 2016;Khatun et al 2017;Cagnotti et al 2018).…”

“…A prerequisite for the use of Trichogramma in augmentative biological control requires that large numbers of parasitoids can be efficiently reared (Parra 2010). In the case of MHM, culture of the parasitoid T. armigera has been successfully established on eggs of the rice moth, Corcyra cephalonica Stainton (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) in Niger (Karimoune et al 2018). Additionally, laboratory performance of trichogrammatid can be indicative of field performance as indicated by Coelho et al (2016).…”