Challenges for Rearing of the Stink Bug: Successes, Failures, and RNAi Screening

We examined the efficacy of using an artificial diet for maintaining brown stink bugs, Euschistus servus (Say).  In prior work, we had demonstrated the feasibility of using artificial diets to deliver chemical insecticides to tarnished plant bugs and protein insecticides to heliothine caterpillars.  These diet-study results, and more recent success in apparent RNAi-mediated attenuation of the expression of T. ni epoxide hydrolase after feeding 3rd instars double-stranded RNA constructs, suggest the potential for developing an artificial-diet bioassay for screening candidate nucleic acid insecticides for RNAi control of cotton pests.