| Pink bollworm | |
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Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Lepidoptera |
| Family: | Gelechiidae |
| Genus: | Pectinophora |
| Species: | P. gossypiella |
| Binomial name | |
| Pectinophora gossypiella (Saunders, 1844) | |
| Synonyms | |
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Thepink bollworm (Pectinophora gossypiella;Spanish:lagarta rosada) is an insect known for being a pest incotton farming. The adult is a small, thin, gray moth with fringed wings. The larva is a dull white caterpillar with eight pairs of legs[1] with conspicuous pink banding along its dorsum. The larva reaches one half inch in length.
The female moth lays eggs in a cotton boll, and when the larvae emerge from the eggs, they inflict damage through feeding. They chew through the cotton lint to feed on the seeds. Since cotton is used for bothfiber andseed oil, the damage is twofold. Their disruption of the protective tissue around the boll is a portal of entry for other insects and fungi.
The pink bollworm is native to Asia, but has become aninvasive species in most of the world's cotton-growing regions. It reached the cotton belt in the southern United States by the 1920s. It was a major pest in the cotton fields of the southern California deserts. TheUSDA announced in 2018[2] that it had been eradicated from the continental United States, through the synergistic combination of usingtransgenicBt cotton andreleasing sterile males.[3]
In parts of India, the pink bollworm is now resistant to first generation transgenicBt cotton (Bollgard cotton) that expresses a singleBt gene (Cry1Ac).[4]Monsanto has admitted that this variety is ineffective against the pink bollworm pest in parts ofGujarat,India.[5] Infestation on susceptible cotton is generally controlled with insecticides. Once a crop has been harvested, the field is plowed under as soon as possible to stop the life cycle of the new generation of pink bollworm. Unharvested bolls harbor the larvae, so these are destroyed. The plants are plowed into the earth and the fields are irrigated liberally to drown out remaining pests. Some farmersburn the stubble after harvest. Surviving bollworms will overwinter in the field and re-infest the following season. Populations of bollworms are also controlled with mating disruption, chemicals, and releases of sterile males which mate with the females but fail to fertilize their eggs.
Authority control databases: National |
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