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FOOD PREFERENCE OF QUETTA BORER, AEOLESTHES SARTA COLEOPTERA; (CERAMBYCIDAE) UNDER CONTROL CONDITION

Muhammad Yousaf Ghilzai, Arshad Ghani Khan,Imran Ali Sani, Nisar Ahmed, Mohammad Amin, Zafarullah,1Azhar Sheikh,Essa Khan, Zia ul Haq,Umair Ahmed, Sajid Nabi

Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan, which is blessed with four agro-ecological zones and it has unique environment condition for the production of a great variety of quality fruits, that’s why the province is known as the fruit-basket of the country. Among these fruits’ apple, apricot and almond are considered as important fruits of the world and Pakistan. Fruits provide nutrients and vitamins to the human. These fruits are generally grown in temperate regions of Pakistan especially in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK). These fruits are attacked by number of insect pests viz, codling moth, shot hole borer, aphids and san Jose scale but borers (roundhead borer and flat-headed borer) are most serious/ destructive pest and potential threat to deciduous fruit of Balochistan. Adult stages feed on the buds, cortex and causing heavy leaf defoliation. While, immature stage (larvae) bore into the tree and destroyed their xylem and phloem bundle which badly affects the yield of the tree. Round-headed borer preferred/attacked stressed trees and in case of heavy infestation and without any proper control attacked tree dry up within one or two years. Keeping in view of the pest attack to fruits present study was conducted to check the feeding preference of round headed wood borer beetles on apple, apricot and almond. The results of our findings were non-significant so it can be concluded that A. sarta can be reared in the laboratory conditions as compared to natural environmental conditions because it was also impartible to study the complete life cycle of A.sarta in its natural condition because regular tracking of feeding and boring larvae within the tree trunk and cutting of the tree for each observation till the completion of life cycle is not feasible. Therefore a need was felt to develop a simple method of rearing A.sarta in laboratory conditions in order to identify susceptible stages and feeding preference of A.sarta to effective control methods. Key Words: Food preference , Quetta borer, Aeolesthes sarta, coleoptera,cerambycidae

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