Abstract

SANCHEZ, Jaiver Danilo; LOPEZ, Aristóbulo  and  RODRIGUEZ, Luis Ernesto. Determining critical stages in the Solanum phureja potato crop's phenological development regarding Guatemalan potato moth Tecia solanivora (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) attack. Agron. colomb. [online]. 2005, vol.23, n.2, pp.230-238. ISSN 0120-9965.

The critical stage of creole potato Solanum phureja 'Criolla Colombia' variety's phenological development, regarding the Guatemalan potato moth Tecia solanivora (Povolny), was determined in the present work. Four stages were established according to the crop's phenological development: vegetative growing, blooming, fruit formation and ripening to senescence. A treatment was applied for each stage. There were four releases of 60 T. solanivora pairs, one per week, keeping the remaining time pest-free. The witness treatment was kept pest-free during the whole development cycle. Treatments were evaluated using a completely randomized design with five treatments and two replications. Tuber weight and number per category and total obtained at harvest and incidence and severity of injury on tubers affected by the Guatemalan moth were the variables which were evaluated. The results demonstrated that the fourth crop stage was the most critical regarding pest attack, since it presented the highest weight of affected tubers, although the pest causes injury from the very start of tuber formation. Affected tubers evaluated during the phenological stages presented no differences regarding severity of injury, demonstrating that tuber injury intensity does not depend on the crop stage during which the pest occurs. Pest cycle length was roughly 66-68 days in experiment conditions.

Keywords : creole potato; injury severity; injury incidence; critical stage.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )