Abstract: In order to get a satisfying formula of the chemically artificial diet for larvae of the cotton bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera, we used UD-SVR, an experimental design and analysis method reported by our preliminary studies, for formula optimization. Based on the benchmark diet of a chemically artificial diet for the larvae of the light brown apple moth, Epiphyas postvittana, the contents of 20 natural amino acids were optimized first, and the contents of 8 non-amino acid nutrients including sucrose were optimized then. After 4 rounds of optimization with total 97 schemes, an optimal formula of the chemically artificial diet for the cotton bollworm larvae was obtained. When the H. armigera larvae fed on this diet, their mean pupal weight and the pupation rate were 0.255 g and 97.9%, respectively; when the larvae fed on the benchmark diet, however, the above two indices were only 0.160 g and 10.4%, respectively. The results reconfirmed the effectiveness of UD-SVR in the complex prescription optimization. More importantly, the optimized chemically artificial diet for the cotton bollworm provides the basis for further research on the requirement and metabolism of nutrition compounds in the moth.

Key words: Helicoverpa armigera, chemically defined diet, uniform design, support vector regression, prescription optimization