Pea Weevil

Pea Weevil 

(Bruchus pisorum). a beetle of the family Bruchidae, a serious pest of the pea plant. The body is 4–5 mm long and is shiny black with a rusty gray down; the wing cases have oblique whitish bands; at the end of the abdomen there is a white cruciform design.

Pea weevils are found everywhere. In the USSR they do great damage in the steppe and forest-steppe zones. There is one generation a year. Pea weevils appear on flowering pea crops. The weevil deposits its eggs on the green beans (algether, more than 200). The larvae embed themselves in the peas, eat out a cavity in them (one larva develops in a pea), and pupate there. The beetles are hatched in the middle of August and winter inside the seed. The majority of weevils accompany the peas to the grain storehouse, and some winter in the fields in peas that have fallen to the ground; in the south pea weevils can leave the seeds and winter in the soil, under vegetable remains, or under tree bark. The damaged seed is worthless either as food or as seed material.

Protective measures include early sowing with healthy seeds, treating the seeds with insecticides, well-timed harvesting, harvesting at shorter intervals, and deep autumn plowing.

REFERENCE

Ivanova, Z. V. Gorokhovaia zernovka. Moscow, 1959.

A. A. BRUDNAIA