Susceptibility of Empoasca vitis (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) populations from the main tea-growing regions of China to thirteen insecticides

Empoasca vitis (Gӧthe) is one of the most serious economic pests of tea in East Asia, and its management relies heavily on chemical pesticides. The present study established the baseline susceptibilities of E. vitis to thirteen insecticides (LC50 values ranged from 0.265 to 9.901 mg L−1), including bifenthrin, nitenpyram, buprofezin, tolfenpyrad, indoxacarb, chlorfenapyr, imidacloprid, acetamiprid, diafenthiuron, dinotefuran, ethiprole, chlorpyrifos and isoprocarb. Our data showed that the difference among populations in susceptibility to indoxacarb (LC50 variation = 5.80-fold) was greater than other compounds, with the greatest susceptibility for Duyun and Fu-An populations (average resistance ratios < 1.0-fold). Based on parallelism analysis, all populations had similar susceptibility responses to eleven insecticides except chlorfenapyr and tolfenpyrad. Correlation analysis indicated that a higher risk of cross resistance existed between commonly used imidacloprid, chlorfenapyr, and indoxacarb. These results provided valuable information to evaluate the dynamic variation in susceptibility of field populations of E. vitis in China tea production.