Influence of Seed Size on the Performance of Callosobruchus maculatus in Four Cowpea Varieties

Adebayo, R.A. and Ogunleke, O.M.

 

Full Length Research Paper  I Published November,2016

 

Journal of Agricultural Science and Food Technology  Vol. 2 (10), pp.164-168

 

 

ABSTRACT

 

There have been reports on the factors influencing the performance of cowpea seed beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus (F.). Therefore, experiments were conducted on four local cowpea varieties (Oloyin, Drum, Sokoto white small and big) to evaluate the effects of seed size on the performance of C. maculatus on the varieties. The study was carried out at the Pest Management Laboratory, Department of Crop, Soil and Pest Management, Federal University of Technology Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria. Ten seeds of the four varieties and two seeds of the varieties mixed served as the control were infested with 3 pairs of 2days old adult’s C. maculatus in petri dishes (90x150 mm) and replicated three times. The experiments were conducted under prevailing laboratory conditions of 28±2°C temperature and 60±5% relative humidity. Data were collected on initial weight of seeds, number of eggs laid, number of seeds with eggs,  number of seeds without eggs, number of emerged adults, number of seeds with holes, number of seeds without holes, weight loss and percentage damage. Results indicated that more eggs (41.00) were laid on Sokoto small variety but had no significant difference (p> 0.05) from the other varieties. Results also indicated that the highest number of adult’s C. maculatus (9.00) emerged from the Drum variety but this was not statistically different (p> 0.05) from the other varieties. Weight loss (0.41) and percentage damage (56.67%) were highest in the Sokoto small. The study showed that the number of eggs laid was not influenced by the size of the seed but the number of emerged adults was influenced by the seed size.

Key Words: Callosobruchus maculatus, Damage, Influence, Seed size and Weight loss.
 

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