D3104: Improvement of peanut breeding programs by screening antibiosis resistance to lepidopteran pests

Host plant resistance in peanut represents one of the tactics with the potential to decrease production costs and replace the dependence on chemical control in a current scenario of regulatory loss of insecticides. Antibiosis-based resistance to defoliator lepidopteran pests is widely desired because it acts to negatively affect insect metabolic processes, which compromises pest life parameters such as larval survival and larval development time. This study aimed to document sources of antibiosis resistance to Chrysodeixis includens, a challenging pest to be managed in peanut and used here as the template species. Sources of antibiosis resistance were assessed on ten UF peanut breeding lines, in a RCBD, with 12 replicates. The study was performed in greenhouse, at WFREC, Jay, FL, and larval and adult life history traits were documented. In addition, the freeze-dried plant tissue method was applied as an alternative to estimate antibiosis resistance in peanut lines, considering the potential to accelerate the selection of lines for resistance by reducing the labor and time demanded in plant cultivation and the performance of field and greenhouse trials. Our findings documented sources of antibiosis resistance in UF breeding lines and contrasted the results with the freeze-dried plant tissue method. The overall contribution of the study is to promote the future development of commercial cultivars demanding less chemical control, offering a promising avenue for environmentally friendly and effective pest management in peanut-producing regions.