Hunting Billbug (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) Resistance Among Zoysiagrass (<I>Zoysia</I> spp.) Cultivars

Authors

  • James A. Reinert
  • M. C. Engelke
  • J. J. Heitholt

Abstract

Hunting billbugs (Sphenophorus venatus vestitus Chittenden) cause damage to zoysiagrass (Zoysia spp.) and bermudagrass (Cynodon spp), which is often misdiagnosed as the effects of drought, disease, or another soil insect. Populations have increased over the past several decades and are causing extensive damage on grasses in lawns, golf courses and other landscapes. Nine cultivars of Zoysia were evaluated for resistance to S. venatus vestitus in a field cage choice test in a paired cage split-plot experiment. Leaf-firing of plant canopy was considered an above ground expression of root feeding damage by billbug larvae. ‘Diamond’ and ‘Zorro’ exhibited significantly less leaf firing damage (a reduction of 6.1 and 9.8%, respectively). In contrast, ‘Palisades’, ‘Meyer’, and ‘Crowne’ showed >40% canopy damage. When root, shoot, and total plant dry weights were compared, ‘Diamond’, ‘Zorro’, ‘Cavalier’, and ‘Royal’ [all Z. matrella (L.) Merr.] sustained less dry weight reduction (<53%) than ‘Palisades’, ‘Meyer’, and ‘El Toro’ (all Z. japonica Steud.) with 76, 74, and 70% total dry weight reductions, respectively. Cultivars of Z matrella appear to be more resistant as a group than the Z. japonica cultivars.

View this article in BioOne

Downloads

Published

2011-09-01

Issue

Vol. 94, No. 3 (September 2011)

Section

Research Papers

License

Copyright for any article published in Florida Entomologist is held by the author(s) of the article. Florida Entomologist is an open access journal. Florida Entomologist follows terms of the Creative Commons, Attribution Non-Commercial License (cc by-nc). By submitting and publishing articles in Florida Entomologist, authors grant the FOJ and Florida Entomologist's host institutions permission to make the article available through Internet posting and electronic dissemination, and to otherwise archive the information contained both electronically and in a hard printed version. When used, information and images obtained from articles must be referenced and cited appropriately. Articles may be reproduced for personal, educational, or archival purposes, or any non-commercial use. Permission should be sought from the author(s) for multiple, non-commercial reproduction. Written permission from the author(s) is required for any commercial reproduction.