Taking into account the limits of previous models proposed to predict European corn borer,Ostrinia nubilalis(Hübner) infestation time, complementary research in physiology, population dynamic, and modeling was used to propose a mechanistic model to describe this phenomenon. Diapause is the main process that determines infestation time in this pest. Recent work on diapause has demonstrated the heterogeneity of this development phase. This model describes the first phase of the diapause process, wing disk development. The model proposed consists of two parts; the first component takes into account the influence of temperature as a nonlinear function and the second (normal distributions) represents the variability in development time among a population for each stage. This model has been estimated by maximum likelihood from laboratory data obtained with a destructive sampling under three variable sinusoidal temperature regimes 9–21, 12–34, and 18–42°C with a photoperiod of 12:12 (L:D) hallowing diapause induction. This unique model describes the development under these different temperature ranges with a 2% precision (0.5 d) and has been validated under field conditions. The development of populations ending their development before winter is correctly represented (10% precision). The model is not adapted to describe the population ending their development after winter. The estimated model correctly predicts diapause development for temperatures above 4°C. This report presents novel data in modeling research and demontrates a convincing correlation between laboratory and field collected data.