Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 July 2009
In pot experiments, the ability of newly hatched larvae of the wheat bulb fly, Leptohylemyia coarctata (Fall.), to move through nine in. of soil and infest wheat plants was tested for three different types of soil: sandy loam, clay loam and peaty loam and also clay loams at different levels of acidity. Each soil was inoculated with 200 freshly hatched larvae and the effects associated with soil were measured by the number of larvae subsequently recovered from infested plants.
The larval recoveries for different soil types were: sandy loam 28 per cent., clay loam 19 per cent, and peaty loam 2 per cent. The larvae could infest plants grown in clay loam within a pH range of 4·9 to 7·8 and the results suggested a possible optimum at pH 6·2. The relative failure to infest in peaty loam appeared to be due to this soil impeding larval movement rather than interfering with the mechanism of host-plant location.