Response of Potential Stored Grain Insect Pests to BFL 225 Multi-Attractant Lure in Commercial Warehouses.

Abstract

Farmers generally store their harvested products to ensure a continuous food supply for their household, provide seed for subsequent crops and farm, and as a source of income because it allows farmers to sell the products for cash or to exchange it for other products. But the introduction of new crop varieties, satisfying primarily an increased yield, has led to a contemporary selection of plants susceptible to infestation by insects, due to a loss of resistance to insect attack. Studies were conducted to determine the efficacy of traps baited with the kairomone BFL 225 multi-attractant lure for the detection and monitoring of storage insect pests into commercial warehouses in southern Nigeria for ten months. This trapping experiment demonstrated that floor traps baited with BFL 225 lure significantly (P< 0.001) captured insects compared to the unbaited (control). The predominant insects captured include Sitophilus spp., Plodia interpunctella, Tribolium castaneum, Callosobruchus maculatus, Alphitobius laevigatus and Rhyzopertha dominica. The implication of his study is that BFL 225 could be utilized as a part of integrated pest management strategies for early detection of potential insect pests migrating into stored grain warehouses in tropical Africa.

Keywords: Baited traps, storage pests, kairomone, monitoring, warehouses.