Abstract
This study was taken up to examine the relationship between the susceptibility or resistance of six sorghum lines to Chilo partellus and dietary quality of their leaf tissues, incorporated in an artificial diet, to support larval development. The diets tested were agar based basic medium with or without cellulose powder, dry leaf powder or fresh leaf-paste of the sorghum lines. The basic medium alone or with cellulose powder showed the poorest dietary quality in-as-much as it did not support more than 26-32% larval development. the tolerant sorghum IS 18520 leaf tissues, incorporated in the artificial diet as dry powder or fresh leaf-paste, were most efficient in supporting as high larval development as natural host plants. the diets with the leaf-pastes of the susceptible IS 18363 and IS 2146 as well as the moderately resistant IS 4660 also supported equally high larval development but the dry leaf powder of these lines was somewhat inferior in its dietary quality. In contrast, the leaf-paste of the highly resistant IS 1044 and of moderately resistant IS 2205 rendered the quality of the artificial diet as poor as the basic medium, reflecting deleterious effect on larval development due to antibiosis. Such an effect was eliminated by drying the leaves and incorporating their powder in the diet.
