Heliothis virescens as a Pest of Cotton, with Notes on Host Plants in Peru

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Abstract
Evidence is shown from a review of the literature and by actual field work that the tobacco budworm, H. virescens, has become of increasing importance as a pest of cotton. It has been confused with H. armigera in the field. Both spp. attack tobacco and cotton but their food-plant preferences vary with their geogr. distribution. In Brazil and Peru, H. armigera is very common on corn but of no significance on cotton while H. virescens does attack cotton and may occasion considerable loss to this crop under favorable conditions. Ecol. factors exercise an important effect on populations of H. virescens. Natural control of bollworms by parasitic Diptera, Archytas spp., and predaceous Hemiptera, Nabis punctipennis and Paratriphleps laeyiusculus, is more pronounced where crop rotation is practiced. Introduction of new crops on the Canete valley cotton farms was found to be the most practical and economic means of controlling H. virescens where all other methods failed. A list of 20 host plants is given for this species from Peru.

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