Effect of feeding , male presence on some biological characteristics of female Trichogramma brassicae (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae)

Low prominence of natural enemies can cause suboptimal success in biological control programs.In present study, the effects of honey feeding and the availability of males were studied on the biologicalcharacteristics of Trichogramma brassicae Bezdenko. Four treatments were considered: male wasavailable for female for merely 24 h, either with or without honey; male was continuously presented forfemales, either with or without honey. Twenty pairs (l female x I male) of newly emerged perasitoidswere placed in glass tubes and considered as the treatments. Mortality of females was recorded daily inorder to indicate longevity. To detennine fecundity, the emergence rate and female progeny percentage,150 fresh Sitotroga cerealella Olivier eggs were provided for each female in the entire treatments on adaily basis. Results indicated that interaction between adult nutrition and male presence was insignificant(P> 0.01) and did not influence any of biological characteristics. Adult nutrition was more important thanmale presence. Honey-fed females lived 5-folds longer than the unfed females. Longevity was notsignificantly influenced by male presence. Fecundity of honey-fed females was 67 and 70.2 eggs;however, 18.4 and 19 eggs for unfed females. Continuous presence of male did not change fecundity.There were no significant differences in the emergence rate in all treatments and it was more than 90%for the entire treatments. Long-lived females produced more males. Percentage of female progeny wasnot influenced by period of male presence. Therefore, quality of parasitoids was more persuaded by dietprovided rather than the period of male presence.