Performance Specifications for Tobacco Budworm (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) Larvae Treated with Vegetable Oil and Water Sprays Containing Fluvalinate

Abstract

The effect of dosage (DO), volume-mean-diameter droplet size (VM), deposit density (DD) and tank mix concentration (TC) on mortality (MO) of tobacco budworm, Heliothis virescens (F.) larvae exposed to fluvalinate in either vegetable oil or water was determined. For both data sets, the transformed values of MO and DO, TC and DD were positively (and highly significantly) correlated. Several of the correlation coefficients among the independent variables were also significant. DO was the most important independent variable affecting insect MO for both the vegetable oil and water spray deposits. For the vegetable oil spray deposits, only DO and TC were significantly related to MO, while DO was the only significant independent variable for the water-based sprays. Both predictive models give ca. 95–99% MO for DO’s typically used under field conditions. These MO levels also agree closely with those obtained in our data with comparable DO’s.