Insect infestation of farm-stored maize in South Carolina: Towards characterization of a habitat

Abstract

Abstract-Protecting stored grain from insect damage, with minimum pesticide risk, will require pest management based on comprehensive understanding of storage environments and their interactions with pest populations. Computer modeling offers the means to this understanding. To obtain data sets for modeling selected pests of stored maize, we studied maize storages on six farms in a four-county area of southwestern South Carolina. Grain moisture content was measured monthly, and grain temperatures were recorded hourly for one storage season. Insect populations were monitored by taking grain and pitfall trap samples at weekly or monthly intervals. Hourly mean grain temperatures remained below optimal levels for growth and development of insects during most of the storage period. Grain moisture content varied from 11.2 to 16.4%. Forty three species of insects and one species complex, representing 26 families in four orders, were detected. The estimated importance of each species in the farm storage habitat, as measured by relative abundance and frequency of occurrence, depended on whether grain sampling or trapping was used. With trapping, Cryptolestes species (mostly C. pusillus (Schonherr», the Carpophilus dimidiatus complex (C. dimidiatus (F.), c.freemani Dobson and C. mutilatus Erichson), Sitophilus species (mostly S. zeamais Motschulsky), Xylocoris jlavipes (Reuter) and Oryzaephilus surinamensis (L.) appeared most important. With grain sampling, S. zeamais, Sitotroga cerealella (Olivier) and C. pusillus appeared most important. Insects were most abundant (or active) in the fall and again in the spring, if storage extended that long. Grain samples indicated more insects near the grain surface, but traps sometimes detected more near the bottom of the bulk. © 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd

Transgenic avidin maize is resistant to storage insect pests

“…After harvest, maize and commodities produced from maize are frequently hosts to a great variety of insect and fungal pests that cause severe economic damage [1][2][3][4][5][6] . Although Bt formulations have been evaluated extensively for controlling insect pests of stored grain, commercially acceptable levels of protection against coleopteran (beetle) pests have not been achieved [7][8][9][10] .…”

Movement of AdultCryptolestes ferrugineus(Coleoptera: Laemophloeidae) in Wheat: Response to Temperature Gradients and Gravity

“…Hagstrum (1989) observed that numbers of adult C. ferrugineus beetles decrease with depth in the grain bulk of newly harvested wheat over the first 2 months of storage. The observation of Arbogast and Throne (1997) does not suggest this pattern. This contradiction might be explained by the preference for warmer and wetter grain locations and the effect of sliding.…”

Abundance of Plodia interpunctella (Hübner) and Cadra cautella (Walker) infesting maize stored on South Carolina farms: seasonal and non-seasonal variation

“…The nature of the grain storage habitat on South Carolina farms and the diversity of insect populations that occur there were described by Horton (1982) and by Arbogast and Throne (1997). The present paper reports an extension of these studies, which examined temporal variation in abundance of P. interpunctella and C. cautella infesting stored maize.…”

“…Both species occur frequently in farm-stored maize in South Carolina, but Plodia occurs more frequently than Cadra and is usually more abundant (Arbogast and Throne, 1997).…”