IDENTIFICATION OF STORED GRAIN

INSECTS IN FOOD COMMODITIES

DR. R. MEENATCHI
 IDENTIFICATION OF INSECT
INFESTATION IN FOOD COMMODITIES
Dr. R. MEENATCHI
Associate Professor & Head
IIFPT
GRAIN STORAGE IS
IMPORTANT ……

Raw material

Quality of the Product

Consumer Preference
GRAIN STORAGE
FARM STORAGE 65-70% Traditional and bag stores
Rest 35% is procured and stored by various food grain
organizations

CWC -Central Warehousing Corporation

FCI- Food Corporation of India
CSC-Common Service Centres
PDS- Public Distribution System
 POSTHARVEST LOSS - 9.33% -
ESTIMATED BY COMMITTEE HEADED BY DR.PANSE,
GOVT. OF INDIA
 STORED GRAIN INSECT
• Primary feeder - Attack sound grain
• Secondary feeders - Attack damaged grains
– Internal feeders
– External feeders
 SOURCES OF INFESTATION
Carriy over infestation

waste and rejects

Agricultural machineries

Processing plants, farm grain stores and re-used sacks

Means of transportation

Alternative hibernation sites and hosts

 PRIMARY PESTS
• Angoumois grain moth Sitrotrega cerealella
• Cigarette beetle Lasioderma serricorne (Fab.)
• Khapra beetle Trogoderma granarium Everts
• Lesser grain borer Rhyzopertha dominica (Fab.)
• Pulse beetle Callosobruchus maculatus (Fab.)
• Rice weevil Sitophilus oryzae (Linn.)
• Groundnut beetle Caryedon serratus (Olivier)
• Drug store beetle Stegobium paniceum (Linn.)
 SECONDARY PESTS
• Flour beetle Tribolium casteneum

• Indian meal moth Plodia interpuctella (Hubner)

• Fig moth/ Almond moth Cadra Cautella (Wlk.)

• Long headed flour beetle Latheticus oryzae

• Rice moth Corcyra cephalonica (Staint.)

• Saw toothed grain beetle Oryzaephilus surinamensis

• Confuse flour beetle Tribolium castaneum

• Flat grain beetle Cryptolestes sp

IDENTIFICATION OF COMMON PEST OF
STORED GRAIN
METHODS TO DETECT INSECT
INFESTATION
• Physical methods
 Visual examination
 Sampling and sieving
 Dissecting the grains
 Microscopic examination
 Measurement of carbon dioxide
 Floatation technique
 X-ray imaging
 Use of various traps
Chemical methods
Analysis of uric acid
Staining method
Chemical compound - Pheromones
Others
X-ray imaging
E-nose
Molecular methods
 Rice weevil (Sitophilus oryzae)
Host range: Rice, wheat, maize, pulses, sorghum, barley and
other stored products
Identification:
a) Eggs: Translucent white
b) Larva: Plump, fleshy, legless having a white body and a yellowish black head
c) Pupa: Whitish, pupates inside the grain
d) Adult: Tiny, reddish brown, with a snout of about one-third of the body length
and
elytra bears four prominent yellow brown or light reddish brown patches
Damage:
• Both adults and grubs cause damage
• Grubs feed internally and changes the inner contents to mere mass
• Adults bore out a hole in the grain for emergence and feeds externally
thereafter
Angoumois grain moth (Sitotroga cerealella)

Host: Paddy, wheat, maize, sorghum, barley, oats

Identification:
a) Egg - White eggs, which soon become red.
b) Larva – Yellowish white with yellow head.
c) Pupa - Pupates in cocoon inside the grain.
d) Adult - Dirty yellowish brown with narrow pointed wings
completely folded over back in a sloping manner.
Damage:
• Larva hollows out the grain, adults being harmless
• It attacks both in fields and stores.
• In stored bulk grain, infestation remains confined to upper 30
cm depth only.
• Caterpillar enters the grain through crack and remains in a
single grain only.
 Khapra Beetle (Trogoderma granarium)

Host: Sorghum, rice, barley, gram, maize, poppy,

pulses, walnut and other dried fruits
Identification:
a) Eggs: Translucent white, cylindrical
b) Larva: Grub is straw coloured with dark brown
hairy and typical posterior tuft forming a tail of long
hairs
c) Pupa: Pupation takes place on the surface of the
grain in bulk and overlapping edges of bags
d) Adult: Reddish brown, convex, oval in shape with
practically no distinct division of head, thorax and
abdomen.
Damage:
• Only grubs cause the damage
• Grubs eat the grain near embryo
• It reduces the grain into frass and remains confined
to peripheral layers of bags in bulk storage
Pulse beetle damage
 CIGARATTE BEETLE
Eggs: Ovoid, creamish white and elliptical

Grub: White, fleshy and hairy grub

Adult: Small, robust, oval, light brown round

beetle with its thorax and head bent downward
and elytra bearing minute hairs on them

Damage:
• Both grubs and adults cause damage,
making holes through the food grains
• Grubs make circular, pinhead sized bore
holes on processed tobacco
RED RUST FLOUR BEETLE ( TRIBOLIUM CASTANEUM )
• Host: Wheat flour, dry fruits, pulses and prepared
cereal foods
Identification:
1. Egg - White, translucent, sticky, slender and cylindrical
2. Grub - Worm like, whitish cream colour, faint stripes, two spines like
appendages at the end segment.
3. Pupa - Pupa remains loosely lying in the grain and is naked.
4. Adult - Oblong, flat, brown in colour. Antennae have a clear 3-
segmented club
Damage
• It is primary pest of flour and other milled products and secondary pest
of stored grains
• They construct tunnels as they move through flour and other food
products
• In grains, embryo or germ portion is preferred
• They release gaseous quinines which produce an identifiable acid odour
 INDIAN MEAL MOTH & RICE MOTH

• Characteristic webbing in grains

• Fowl smell
• Clogging
 MONITORING STORED PESTS

 Insect probe trap.

 Pitfall trap
Indicator Device

UV – Light trap for warehouse

Pheromone traps
UV – LIGHT TRAP FOR GRAIN STORAGE GODOWNS

• Phototrophic attracted towards light

• 350 to 550 nm (UV & Blue)

• 5m above ground level – evening &night

• 2 nos per ware house

• Moths and butterflies

X-ray imaging technique

It is a simple, fast and non-

destructive method
Internal feeders (Wheat,
maize, mango – Alphanso,
thotapuri, neelam)
80-100 % accuracy
High Cost
Human hazards
 CO2 indication
Insects and molds aerobic respire and release CO2
into stored grains
Monitor the insects and quality
Sealed structures, silos, bins, etc.,
In the headspace ambient air has concentration of
350 to 600 ppm
600 – 1500 ppm mould growth
1500 to 4000 ppm stored pests
CO2 monitors
 Acoustic methods

Insects in hidden kernals inside can be detected

acoustically by amplification and filtering of movement and
sounds
Small scale
Sound production – intensity, duration, spectral
characteristics, distance between source and receiver
Biological factors – dormant and dead insects, early larval
stages cannot detect
 URIC acid measurement in food commodities

•Samples treated with HCL, incubated at 55 to 60 C in water

bath
•And neutralized with sodium hydroxide
•Uric aci is extracted with sodium acetate , phototungstic acid
as colour agent
•Uric acid is destroyes with uricase, calorimetric analysis is
carried out
•High concentration
•Chromatography
•GCMS
•LCMS
 Molecular methods
•More precise
•All states, dead or live insects
•Fragments of insects
•PCR based detection kits are
used
•Presence of 0.01 no of insects in
5 kg of grains