About Groundnut Bruchid

The adult is a brown beetle (Fig.).
Small translucent milky-white eggs can be seen attached to the pod wall.
The larva burrows through the pod wall, and starts eating the seed.
Fully grown larvae often leave the storage sack and pupate in large numbers at the bottom of the pile of sacks.

 

Bruchids Damage

The first sign of attack is the appearance of 'windows' cut into the pod wall by the larva.The larva burrows through the pod wall, and eats the seeds. Thus, groundnut seeds are too badly damaged for human consumption or oil expulsion.

 

Management

Drying the pods to less than 10% moisture before storing. No live insect pests are present in the produce or in the storage areas. Spraying the bags with pods with DDVP (Nuvan) at 2 ml/ liter of water or dusting with 5% Malathion.Fumigation of pods with Aluminum phosphide (Celphos) at 3 g tablets per bag of groundnut (40 kg) and covering the sacks with polythene sheet for 5 days can effectively control bruchids without affecting the seed viability.Fumigation should be done only in well aerated places outside the residential areas or in seed godowns only.