Abstract
A technique for rearing the harmful mushroom fly Neoempheria ferruginea, in the sawdust-based cultivation of shiitake, Lentinula edodes, using shiitake mycelial blocks was developed. One male and one female fly were placed in a polyethylene bag with a stalk of shiitake mushroom and a sheet of filter paper moistened with distilled water for the female to deposit eggs. The eggs were picked up, placed on another filter paper using forceps, and the filter paper was placed on an unwrapped mycelial block. The larvae grew by eating the surface of the mycelial blocks and fruit bodies protruding from the mycelial blocks. They then pupated on the surfaces of the mycelial blocks. When a mycelial block was used immediately after unwrapping, or when the fruit bodies were left as larval food, the emergence rate from inoculated larvae was high, the developmental time from egg to adult decreased, and large pupae were obtained. The flies were reared from egg to adult at combinations of five temperatures (12, 15, 20, 23, and 25°C) and two photoperiodic regimes (LD16:8 and LD10:14). The developmental zero (T0) and thermal constant (K) from egg to adult of males and females reared under LD16:8 were 7.2°C and 293.6 degree-days and 7.3°C and 304.3 degree-days, respectively. By contrast, those of males and females reared under LD10:14 were 7.0°C and 280.5 degree-days and 7.1°C and 293.6 degree-days, respectively.
