Artificial diet for cocoa pod borer moth, Conopomorpha cramella Snellen

Cocoa pod borer (CPB), Conopomorpha cramella (Snellen) is an exceptionally devastating insect pest of cocoa in Malaysia and other South East Asian countries. An artificial diet that allows CPB to complete its life cycle is needed to establish laboratory colonies for insect pest management programs. We successfully developed six artificial diet that can sustain CPB from egg to larva to pupa to adult moth and to egg again. The diet contain immature cocoa pulp and placenta, egg yolk, cellulose, starch, casein, yeast, choline chloride, i-inositol, Vanderzant vitamins, flaxseed oil, agar and water. Rearing was conducted in petri dishes with diet blocks at room temperature and in darkness. Several adult moth emerged, four was morphologically normal, but only one that reared in CPB60-N diet was fecund. It was able to mate with a wild virgin female, producing egg with 75% viability. From these, three larvae were reared in the same artificial diet unti l pupation and one emerged into an adult moth. This is the first artificial diet to sustain not only CPB but also any member of the Gracillariidae family from egg to larva to pupa to adult to egg again.