Botanicals for Protection of Mungbean against Callosobruchus maculatus during Storage

The mungbean/green gram is one of the major grain legume crops native to the Indian subcontinent, which was found damaged extensively by the pulse beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus during storage. Moreover, insect damage also causes chemical constituents of seeds leading to alteration in flavor, nutritive value, marketability and acceptability of the stored seeds. Therefore, present investigation was focused on evaluating bioefficacy of botanicals in the protection of green gram grains from C. maculatus and also the changes on biochemical properties during six months of storage.

During the experimentation, green gram seeds were treated with selected botanicals in the form of oils, powders and their aqueous extracts and the effects on pulse beetle in terms of adult emergence and seed damage was recorded up to six months storage. Changes in biochemical constituents of the stored grains were also recorded.

The study revealed significantly lesser number of exit holes/100 grains (1.33 to 13.33), adult emergence (4.33 to 15.00 no.), weight loss (0.92 to 3.10%) and grain damage (1.40 to 5.40%) in neem oil @ 3.0% after one month interval. The crude protein values did not vary significantly among the treatments, but the alcoholic acidity varied between 0.30-0.94%. The uric acid content in grains was increased with insect population. Significantly lower values of free fatty acids were recorded in the standard check which was at par with all the concentrations of neem oil, Karanj oil and 3.0% mustard oil.