Abstract:

Artificial diets rapidly establish the effectiveness of chemical-based control sirategies. Diets pennit
preliminaiy evaluation of active compounds, study in-vitro larval growth cycles that are usually inaccessible and
produce uniform large consistent numbers of insects as needed. With no known artificial diet, banana weevils,
have always been reared on field-collected banana rhizome (conn). This study, therefore, developed and
examined the effect ofcoinmercial diet recipes fortified with susceptible banana corm powder on weevil growth
and dcvclopincni. Subsequently conn powders from diftcrcnt banana cultivars were also evaluated Ibr weevil
on diet was achieved in 48 days
susceptible genotypes. The diet developed
performance. Successful laboratory rearing of the weevils to adult stage
compared to 36 days in the natural banana stem. The difference in weevil larvae perfbnnance reared different
conn powder, presented a novel screening method fbr banana genotypes. For example genotypes, Culcatta-4
(AA). Cavendish (AAA) and Kayinja (ABB) showed 0-35% of adult emergences compared to 65% in
can be used to perform rapid bioassay experimentation to screen
potential candidate proteins or molecules for a transgenic approach. It has also shown potential for rapid
screening of genotypes for resistance.