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Abstract
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Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) is one of the most important and devastating pest of tomato crops throughout South and Central America and Europe. Though it has recently invaded Iran, it has caused heavy damages to tomato crop in greenhouses and fields. Since lower pest oviposition rate results from existence of resistance factors in host plants, oviposition preferences of T. absolutaon different parts of 12 cultivars of tomato, Lycopersicon esculentum Mill., were evaluated in greenhouses with daily temperature fluctuations of 18– 27 °C during November 2013. Tomato cultivars (Petomech, Mobil, superstain-B, kingstone, Redstone, Early urbana-Y, Early urbana, Riogrande, Cal-J-N3, Primo early, Falat-111 and Dehghan) were provided by the Seed and Plant Improvement Institute in Karaj. This study was carried out in a randomized complete design with 3 replications and different population densities of adults of tomato leafminer within four days. The results showed that with increasing adult density, the rate of oviposition was significantly increased on the under-side of tomato leaves compared with the other parts of plant (upper-side of leaf, petiole, and stem). On the fourth day of the experiment, the higher and lower ovposition rates were observed on Falat-111 (30 ± 16.093 eggs) and Kingstone (5.33 ± 3.215 eggs) during eight hours of ovipositing. The factors involving resistance or susceptibility of those cultivars can be explored in future studies.
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