EFFECT OF DIFFERENT HOST ON BIOLOGY AND FEEDING POTENTIAL OF GREEN LACEWING, CHRYSOPERLA CARNEA (STEPHENS) (NEUROPTERA: CHRYSOPIDAE) Akshay Kumar 1 , Sunil Kumar Dwivedi 2 * and Vipul Kumar 3 1 Depart. of Entomology, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel University of Agriculture and Technology, Meerut (U.P.) India. 2 Department of Entomology, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara (Punjab) 3 Department of Plant Pathology, Lovely Professional University Phagwara (Punjab) Abstract A Study on effects of different hosts on biology of Chrysoperla carnea (Stephens) was carried out under laboratory conditions at 26±2°C and 65±5% R. H. indicated that the incubation period of eggs of C. carnea females feeding on different hosts as larvae was significantly different from each other. The biology of C. carnea was completed in 26 days on A. craccivora followed by A. gossypii (31 days) and Corcyra cephalonica (45 days). A single larva of C. carnea consumed A. gossypii and 97.33 eggs of Corcyra cephalonica followed by A. gossypii (80.00±2.65 nymphs/adults) and A. craccivora (64.33±0.67 nymphs/adults) per day. However, the all three larval instars of C. carnea consumed 369.00±6.11 eggs of C. cephalonica followed by A. gossypii (277.67±4.37 nymphs/adults) and A. craccivora (206.67±1.86 nymphs/adults) during whole larval period. Key words: Biology, feeding potential, Chrysoperla carnea, aphids Introduction Biological control is relatively permanent, safe, economical and environmentally friendly. It can be defined as “the action of parasites, parasitoids, predators and pathogens to keep the pest populations at a lower average than the economic injury level”. The safety of biological control is outstanding because many natural enemies are host-specific or restricted to a few closely related species. Therefore the non-target species are not affected. Efficient natural enemies often continue to have a suppressing affect year on insect pests (DeBach, 1964). The genus Chrysoperla contains several important species of predatory insects of which the common green lacewing, Chrysoperla carnea (Stephens) has been recorded as an effective generalist predator of aphids, coccids, mites and mealy bugs etc. (Singh and Manoj, 2000; Zaki and Gesraha, 2001). Larvae of C. carnea are voracious and efficient biological control agents for various phytophagous arthropods (McEwen et al., 2001). One larva may devour as many as five hundred aphids in its life and there is no doubt that they play an important part in the natural control of many small homopterous pests (Michaud, 2001). It has significant potential for commercialization and use against a variety of crop pests in combination with other insect pest management tactics. It is estimated that possibly up to one third of the successful biological insect pest control programmes are attributable to the introduction of C. carnea and release of insect predators (Williamson and Smith, 1994). The knowledge of biology plays an important role in mass production and its utilization in pest management programme. To insight the information on description and duration of different stages of C. carnea, to start a biological programme using C. carnea; mass-rearing techniques which are economical as well as posses higher biological efficiency need to be worked out. Material and Methods Biology of Chrysoperla carnea on three natural hosts was studied in Bio-control laboratory, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel Uni. of Agric. and Tech., Meerut (U.P.) India during 2011. Experiment was designed in Complete Plant Archives Vol. 19 No. 1, 2019 pp. 281-284 e-ISSN:2581-6063 (online), ISSN:0972-5210 *Author for correspondence : E-mail : dwivedi.sunilkumar46@gmail.com