THE GROUNDNUT PEST CARYEDON SERRATUS

This book is intended for students of graduate and undergraduate programmes in Agriculture. Students carrying out their study in the field of pest management and biological control for it will get benefit of the studies compiled in this book. Pheromone technology for pest management has been focused along with the biology and life cycle of groundnut pest Caryedon serratus.

Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea) is one of the most important oil seed crop of India. It is heavily infested during storage by Caryedon serratus (Olivier) (Bruchidae: Coleoptera). The grub of C. serratus infests the unshelled groundnuts by making a characteristic round hole on them which causes qualitative and quantitative loss to the kernels. Many insecticides, fumigants and natural products are being used for its control. Pheromone technology is one of the most effective and ecofriendly tool for insect control. So, ovipositional behavior of C. serratus was studied by choice and non-choice experiments for the presence of some ovipositional deterrent pheromone by successive elution of eggs of the insect in solvents with increasing polarity (hexane, dichloromethane and methanol).