Further Studies on the Cross Infectivity of Granulosis Viruses of Sugarcane Borers

The sugarcane shoot borer, Chilo infuscatellus Snell. and internode borer, C. sacchariphagus indicus (Kapur) (Crambidae:Lepidoptera) were found susceptible to two granulosis viruses (GV) (Easwaramoorthy and David, 1979; Mehta and David, 1980). The GV of shoot borer (CiGV) propagated in the laboratory and applied in the field was effective in the suppression of the pest (Easwaramoorthy and Santhalakshmi, 1988). The GV of internode borer (CsiGV) was highly pathogenic to the host in the laboratory (Easwaramoorthy, 1984). It is difficult to mass rear C. infuscatellus and C. sacchariphagus indicus on artificial diets, though a diet is available for limited multiplication of internode borer (Mehta and David, 1978), Hence attempts were made to infect other related hosts (Easwaramoorthy and Jayaraj, 1987) so that they can serve as alternate hosts for production of the viruses. But none of them was found susceptible to the GVs. In the present study, some more hosts were tested for their susceptibility to the two GVs.