a study on some biological characteristics of olive leaf moth, palpita unionalis hübner (lep: pyralidae) in iran

nearly just a decade ago, olive leaf moth, palpita unionalis, was identified as an exotic pest from an olive grove in roodbar, iran. in order to plan an ipm programme regarding olive, a series of laboratory and field studies were carried out during 2001-2003 in qazvin province. to study the emergence time, number of generations, feeding behaviour and developmental periods at field, five trees (zard cultivars) were selected within two groves, twenty infested branches of which (4 per tree) were taken to be covered with fine mesh net. they were monitored weekly. in the laboratory, a number of the pest pupae were taken to predefined conditions and reared at 25±0.5°c, 65±5% rh and 12:12 l:d. then, the developmental period at various life stages, adults’ life span, females’ fecundity as well as sex ratios were determined. the field results showed that it took 34.2±2.1 days from neonate larval stage to adult emergence. moreover, it was revealed that the pest had 4 to 5 overlapping generations per year. based on the laboratory experimental results, embryonic developmental time, whole larval stages, pupal duration and female and male longevity took 5.8±1.08, 21.6±0.33, 8.33±1.0 and 12.6±1.3, and 13.5±1.1 days, respectively. besides, females laid 182.33±18.1 eggs, on the average.