Mortality and Development Effects of Transgenic Cotton on Pink Bollworm Larvae

Abstract

Pink bollworm (PBW), Pectinophora gossypiella (Saunders), larval mortality after different times of confinement on NuCOTN 33B® (Bt) cotton bolls were compared with larval mortality on Delta and Pineland 5415 cotton bolls as controls. We also compared larval mortality on different age cotton fruiting forms and determined the Bt susceptibility of different age PBW larvae. Infesting Bt bolls with PBW eggs that hatched within 24 h resulted in 92% larval mortality after 48 h and 100% mortality in 4 days or longer. There were no differences between cultivars in numbers of larval entrances holes into bolls. Generally, days to pupation for both males and females were longer on Bt bolls compared with non-Bt cotton. There were no significant mortality differences for larvae feeding on Bt fruiting forms of different ages ranging from one-half grown flower buds to 40-day old immature green bolls.