Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 May 2012
The seed-corn maggot, Hylemya cilicrura (Rond.), is a cosmopolitan pest and feeds on a wide range of hosts. The maggots cause extensive damage to seeds and seedlings of beans, soybeans, peas, corn, and cucurbits. Hitherto laboratory investigations have been hampered because the maggot has been very difficult to rear continuously.
Biological studies have indicated that such diverse diets as soybeans (Harukawa et al., 1934), cottonseed meal and fish meal (Reid, 1940), and potato (Leach, 1926) serve to rear the maggot to the adult stage. However, it has been difficult to maintain an adult colony for the time required for mating and oviposition. Reid (1940) used field-collected flies as a source of eggs in his experiments, but failed to get a second generation. Successive generations were reared by Ristich (1950), who provided a high protein diet for adults held in glass cages; in attempts to follow this method at Chatham, only one complete generation could be reared. A more satisfactory method of rearing the species continuously is described in this paper.