An Improved Chemically Defined Diet for the Pea Aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum1

Abstract

Acyrthosiphon pisum (Harris) was reared for more than 7 successive generations on a chemically defined diet that combined features of the diets described by Auclair in 1965 for the pea aphid and by Dadd and Mittler in 1966 for the green peach aphid, Myzus persicae (Sulzer). The results of the rearing tests indicated that a high concentration of sucrose, an alkaline pH of the diet, and the inclusion of trace amounts of the metals, Cu, Fe, Mn, and Zn, in sequestrene forms, were all necessary for an improved performance of the pea aphid on chemically defined diets.