Pectinophora gossypiella (Saunders)

Pectinophora gossypiella, though native to India, has become a serious pest of cotton throughout India causing heavy economic losses in recent years. As it is an internal feeder, the damage inflicted by it is perceptible only after the damage is done to the squares, flowers and bolls. The infested flowers may have the petals tied together with silken threads, commonly termed "rosette". The rosette flowers do not open normally. As the bolls develop, they become the preferred egg laying site. The developing larvae tunnel through the boll wall until they reach the lint. They cut through the lint fiber as they move from seed to seed. The burrowing activity stains lint, destroys fibers; and reduces seed weight, utility and oil content. The larvae cut holes in boll walls as they leave bolls for pupation. These holes often get infected with boll rotting organisms. In case of severe infestation, many bolls that might otherwise have been harvested are rendered unpickable.

Pectinophora gossypiella is also produced on the diet described for Earias uittella. The culture of the pink bollworm is built up by collecting the non-diapausing larvae from the field and rearing up to adult stage. The eggs obtained, hatch in about 4 days. The hatching larvae can be placed in a petriplate tightly secured with lid lined with non absorbent cotton wool along the circular edge sitting on the bottom of petriplate to a depth of 2 cm and or, 0.5 g diet is poured in black film cassette vials (7.5 cm x 1 cm) and secured tightly with the non-absorbent cotton wool. The larvae are full fed in 25-40 days and pupate. Pupae are collected, washed with 0.2% sodium hypochlorite which is neutralized with 10% sodium thiosulphate and thoroughly washed with distilled sterilized water and rolled over a sheet of blotting paper to remove excess moisture. The pupae are placed in a cage similar to the one used for adult oviposition. The adults from these pupae emerge in 6-12 days which are fed on 10% honey soaked, and water soaked cotton swabs.

The adults live for 5-10 days. The females live 2-3 days longer than males. The females produce 120-460 eggs during their oviposition period of about one week.