Quantitative nutrition of fall armyworm in corn cultivated in soil corrected for three levels of aluminum

Abstract

The experiment was conducted in laboratory, in a complete randomized design using newly-hatched larvae. These larvae were fed on excised leaves of a susceptible corn hybrid cultivated in a soil previously corrected for three levels of aluminium using dolomitic lime. Leaf consumption was measured in terms of area and weight. Consumption indexes were also calculated. The results indicated that there was a compensatory response, where the larvae changed the food uptake behavior trying to compensate the ingestion and utilization difficulties by differentiating the ingestion rate. The larval development does not change so much, although there is a higher consumption of energy. The corn leaves produced in the soil with low aluininium content were the most suitable to the larvae due to lower consumption, better digestion and lower metabolic cost compared with the other treatments