Attractiveness of wheat bran and its volatiles to larvae of Athetis lepigone( Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)

【Aim】Athetis lepigone( Mschler)( Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) is a new insect pest in summer corn and causes serious damages to corn seedlings in China. It is very difficult to control this insect pest because its larvae hide beneath the straw and bran of winter corn in the field after harvest by combines.So it is important to study the attractant for A. lepigone larvae. 【Methods】Y-tube olfactometer tests were conducted to investigate taxis responses of A. lepigone larvae to straw,bran,wheat bran,fried wheat bran and corn seedlings. The volatile components of fried wheat bran and wheat bran were analyzed by HS-SPME and GC-MS,and six compounds and eight blends were selected to further conduct the laboratory trapping. 【Results】Among the five materials,fried wheat bran was the most attractive to A.lepigone larvae,and among the six volatile components,2-heptanone( 5 μg /μL) showed the strongest attractiveness to A. lepigone larvae,with the luring rate of 75. 9%. Among eight blends,a threecomponent blend( 2-heptanone + benzaldehyde + p-xylene) strongly attracted A. lepigone larvae with the luring rate of 72. 7%,but its attractiveness effect was lower than that of 2-heptanone. 【Conclusion】The results showed that 2-heptanone has the strongest attractiveness to A. lepigone larvae. These results provide a basis for controlling the larvae of A. lepigone with field trapping.