Resistance Among Lantana Cultivars to the Lantana Lace Bug, Teleonemia Scrupulosa (Hemiptera: Tingidae)‪.‬

Abstract Lantana lace bug, Teleonemia scrupulosa Stal, (Hemiptera: Tingidae) is a primary insect pest of lantana, a landscape plant commonly grown across the southern United States. Twenty-eight cultivars of lantana were evaluated for resistance to lantana lace bug in replicated field plantings. Natural infestations of lantana lace bugs developed in mid-Jul, and were dispersed across all the replicates within 30 d in Dallas, TX. Populations of nymphs and adults were sampled bi-weekly from Sep-Nov 1996. Highest mean populations were present on 'Patriot Desert Sunset' (40.3 nymphs and adults/3-leaf sample/plant), 'Pink Frolic' (20.6) and 'Patriot Sunburst' (19.4). Nineteen of the cultivars exceeded 4 lace bugs per 3-leaf sample. Lace bugs were never detected on 3 cultivars, 'Weeping White', 'White Lightning' and 'Weeping Lavender' during the test period, and 'Imperial Purple', 'Patriot Rainbow' and 'Denholm Dwarf White' had seasonal means of only 0.1 total lace bugs per sample. Cultivars of L. montevidensis (K. Spreng.) Briq. (mean of 0.02 lace bugs/3 leaf sample) were highly resistant, whereas many cultivars of L. camara L. and L. hybrida hort (6.73 and 9.54 lace bugs/3 leaf sample, respectively) were susceptible. Cultivars with gold, red, purple, and white flowers had far fewer lace bugs than did cultivars with either orange/red, yellow, or bicolors of yellow with another color. These results indicate that within most flower colors or bicolors, there exists a range of resistance among the cultivars and usually at least 1 cultivar per color form with resistance to the lantana lace bug.