The term
"corn borer" refers to an insect that damages or destroys corn plants.
Full definition
Female
European corn borer moths (Ostrinia nubilalis) waft a chemical into the air to lure potential mates.
The European
corn borer moth reached the US in the 1920s, and causes losses of around $ 1 billion a year.
It will be the first genetically engineered grain crop on the market, and could eventually be grown on the million or more hectares of maize fields infected
by corn borers in the US each year.
«Some farmers were very sceptical of entomologists telling them they needed to maintain non-Bt corn so they could
grow corn borers,» says Hutchison, «but over 14 years it's been very successful.»
Conventional growers also help to
stop corn borers becoming resistant to the Bt toxin by hosting pest populations that are susceptible to it, according to the team's research.
Hutchison says that the authors who work for industry provided data
about corn borers and were not involved in the financial calculations.
The production of this toxin protects the maize plants from European
corn borer larvae.
In corn production, for example, maintaining a few villainous milkweed plants in the middle of a cornfield may help minimize crop loss from the destructive
European corn borer.
The borer is hatched from eggs deposited on peppers by
the corn borer moth.
Hi Dave, I've found worms in my chiles and hot cherry peppers and they appear to be either European
corn borers or pepper maggots based on the info I've just read on the web.
They are the caterpillars of
the corn borer moth, that eat holes in the pods and then have a feast on the inside.
Tina: I think your peppers have European
corn borers.
The authors demonstrate this by using the example of the European
corn borer, a moth whose larval phase is a major pest of maize.
We demonstrate this framework with an example about the European
corn borer.»
Researchers, led by entomologist William Hutchison of the University of Minnesota in St Paul, assessed the effects of planting maize (corn) genetically modified to produce Bttoxin, which kills the European
corn borer (Ostrinia nubilalis).
IN what could result in the largest release of genetically engineered organisms so far, the US Environmental Protection Agency last week allowed Ciba, the Swiss - based multinational, to sell a hybrid maize modified to resist the European
corn borer.
Every summer the larvae of a tiny insect known as the European
corn borer (right) wreak havoc on American corn crops, costing farmers nearly a billion dollars annually.
Meanwhile, the bacterial toxin, a protein called CryIA (b), is highly specific to certain insect pests, such as the European
corn borer and the spruce budworm.
Surveys of American farmers by the Department of Agriculture show that the use of Bt [pest - resistant] corn aimed at
the corn borer, for example, hasn't done much to reduce the application of pesticides to corn, because the vast majority of corn acreage isn't treated with pesticide to control that pest.
The wasp parasitizes
the corn borer egg by depositing its own egg inside, killing the corn borer embryo in the process.
Bt produces a protein that is deadly to a very narrow category of pests, including
the corn borer worm.
«Choosing a mate: It's the brain, not the nose, that knows: Changes in the brain determine mate choice in the European
corn borer, an important pest of maize.»
The wasps, in turn, lay eggs inside the eggs of the European
corn borer, killing the corn borer eggs — reducing damage to the crop.
In 1996, corn became the first commercial crop to carry Bt, protecting it from the European
corn borer.
According to the paper, maintaining «refuges» of conventional corn varieties helps prevent
the corn borer from developing resistance to the engineered variety, and the yields in such areas — because of a combination of reduced insect damage and lower costs of the non-engineered seed — ensure that such plantings are profitable.
The genetically modified variety, known as Bt corn, debuted in the Midwest in 1996 as a means of cutting losses from the European
corn borer, a pest that spread to the United States in 1917.