Diagnostic concentrations for several standard and experimental insecticides were determined for a laboratory reference strain of soybean looper, Pseudoplusia includens (Walker), using an insecticide diet overlay bioassay to evaluate the relative susceptibility of field (P) and F₁ generations of four field-collected strains of third-, fourth-, and fifth-instar soybean loopers in 1996 and 1997. Diagnostic concentrations were defined as concentrations that killed 90–95% of the susceptible individuals and were 5 ppm for permethrin, 1,300 ppm for thiodicarb, 60 ppm for chlorfenapyr, 5 ppm for emamectin benzoate, and 60 ppm for spinosad. Field strains exhibited significantly greater percentage survival than the laboratory reference strain in the permethrin bioassays in 1996 and 1997 in both the P and F₁ generation bioassays and in the thiodicarb bioassays in 1997. Larvae exposed to diagnostic concentrations of the experimental insecticides chlorfenapyr, emamectin benzoate, and spinosad usually did not exhibit significantly higher percentage survival than the reference strain.