ASSESSMENT OF QUANTITATIVE LOSSES IN DIFFERENT WHEAT VARIETIES DUE TO RICE WEEVIL (SITOPHILUS ORYZAE L.)

A rapidly rising population and a shift in food preferences away from traditional cereals and towards wheat and wheat products are driving up wheat consumption. Storage pests, particularly Sitophilus oryzae, is one of the important insect pest, damages stored wheat grains, degrading the quality and quantity of the commodities by diminishing nutrition content and rendering them unfit for human use. To overcome such problems a study was undertaken to assess the quantitative losses caused by rice weevil in different wheat varieties during different storage periods so that to choose most resistant variety. This study was undertaken during 2018-2019 under laboratory conditions, different wheat varieties viz, VL 907, RSP 561, WH 1080, HD 3086, WH1105 were assessed for quantitative losses caused by rice weevil Sitophilus oryzae. The assessed parameters were adult emergence, per cent seed damage, per cent weight loss and per cent avoidable losses. Our investigation revealed that among the wheat varieties WH 1080 was found least susceptible with minimum number of progeny emergence (21.9), least seed damage (5.77%) and weight loss (1.50%) up to six months of storage period while as RSP 561 was highly susceptible with maximum number of progeny emergence (94.6), highest seed damage (69.3 %) and weight loss (23.6 %).