Since the potential exists for successfully controlling pest populations of various cotton insects by biological mans, this paper will concentrate on a program which relies heavily on the release of large numbers of sterile insects to control the tobacco budworm. In 1960, Dr. E.F. Knipling proposed that insects which carried deficient genetic traits could be developed and released to aid in the control of pest populations. He further hypothesized that the specific intermating of two related insect species could result in sterile off spring. In 1972, Dr. M.L. Laster successfully demonstrated the interspecific hybridization of the tobacco budworm, Heliothis virescens and a closely related species, Heliothis subflexa females H. subflexa females mated to H. virescens males produce progeny in which males are sterile and females offspring. Once the fertile females are backrossed to H. virescens males, the resulting offspring sterile and female offspring fertile. Once this backcross has been produced, there is no longer a need for H. subflexa, since the sterility trait has been shown to persist in the backcross for more than 100 generations. Therefore, if large numbers of the backcross could be reared for release in a given geographical area, the sterile male trait could be infused into the native population. This should result in an effective level of suppression of the tobacco budworm, one of the most costly cotton insect pests in many parts of the Cotton Belt and an insect which has demonstrated an ability to develop resistance to many insecticides rather rapidly.

General researchers demonstrated with simulation models that properly timed releases of sufficient numbers of backcross would result in an effectively suppressed tobacco budworm population.