Yacon as an alternative host plant for Encarsia formosa mass-rearing: validating a multinomial theorem for bootstrap technique in life table research.

Our results showed that yacon is more suitable than tobacco as a host plant for mass-rearing E. formosa for biological control programs to manage whiteflies. An innovative application of the multinomial theorem for calculating the exact probability of bootstrap samples in life table research was also introduced. © 2021 Society of Chemical Industry.