Shootfly species and their graminaceous hosts in Andhra Pradesh, India

Abstract

This paper describes the results of extensive rearing of shootfly species of the genera Atherigona and Acritochaeta from cultivated and wild Gramineae in Andhra Pradesh, India. Nineteen fly species were recorded from 41 graminaceous species including cultivated sorghum. Atherigona soccata, an important pest of sorghums in the Old World tropics, was reared from 22 host plants. Only cultivated and wild species of sorghum were important as hosts of this pest species. It was observed that alternative host Gramineae were of minor importance in the ’carryover’ of Atherigona soccata through the off season, but the irrigated sorghum grown for fodder could be an important source of flies. In general, shootflies of a particular species usually favored one graminaceous host above others. The numerically dominant fly reared from wild Gramineae was Atherigona falcata, which was recorded on 17 hosts, including sorghum. Other common species in Gramineae were Atherigona pulla, Atherigona oryzae, Atherigona punctata and Atherigona atripalpis, all of which were also reared in very low numbers from sorghum. Five new species of Atherigona were reared; three of these will be described shortly.