Comparatively studies on life cycle, morphometry studies of azuki bean weevil on pigeonpea cultivar ICPL 161 and wild relative accession ICPW 68 in semi-arid tropics

Legume grains are challenging to store than cereals and infested greatly by insects and microbes. Genus Callosobruchus are one of the most important insects causes both quantitative and qualitative reduction in stored pigeonpea grains. Therefore, the study mainly focused on biological activities of Callosobruchus chinensis on cultivar and wild relative accessions of pigeonpea in the room conditions at International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, Telanagana, India during 2018-19 and 2019-20. Test insect culture was obtained from insect rearing cell, ICRISAT. Freshly emerged five pairs of adults were allowed to lay eggs on pigeonpea (ICPL 161 and ICPW 68) grains for 24 hours. The grains containing eggs were collected and stored in vials to record the different stages and morphometrics observations of C. chinensis . The study revealed that ample growth and development of larvae, pupa, adults and highest egg laying capacity of azuki bean weevil were observed on ICPL 161 as compared to ICPW 68. This study will help in development of new Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategies in combination with host plant resistance, transgenics and pheromones development for management of bruchids.