Insect Culture

A culture of S. cerealella was originally obtained from stored maize seeds from Ardabil, Iran, and was maintained at 25°C, 65% relative humidity with a 16-h day length as described by Borzoui and Naseri (2016). The insects were reared into plastic containers (diameter 15 cm, depth 6 cm) with a hole covered by a 50 mesh net for ventilation, containing the wheat seeds (cultivar Bam) for five generations. In each generation, S. cerealella adults were transferred to plastic funnel that was covered by a net cloth for collecting eggs. The sixth generation was used for the experiments.