Integrated Pest Management of Red Flour Beetle. Environment-friendly Control Practices Of Red Flour Beetle ( Tribolium castaneum). The red flour beetle attacks stored grain and other food products including flour, cereals, pasta, biscuits, beans, and nuts, causing loss and damage. The United Nations, in a recent post-harvest compendium, estimated that Tribolium castaneum and Tribolium confusum, the confused flour beetle, are "the two most common secondary pests of all plant commodities in store throughout the world.

1. Environment friendly
control practices of
Red Flour Beetle
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2. • Scientific Name:
Tribolium castaneum
• Family: Tenebrionidae
• Order: Coleoptera
Taxonomy

3. Introduction
• Red flour beetles attack stored grain products such as flour, cereals,
meal, crackers, beans, spices, pasta, cake mix, dried pet food, dried
flowers, chocolate, nuts, seeds, and even dried museum specimens.
They have chewing mouthparts, but do not bite or sting. The red flour
beetle may elicit an allergic response (Alanko et al. 2000), but is not
known to spread disease and does not feed on or damage the
structure of a home or furniture. These beetles are the most important
pests of stored products in the home and grocery stores.

4. • They breed throughout the year in warm areas. The
life cycle takes from 40 to 90 days, and the adult can live
for three years. All forms of the life cycle may be found in
infested grain products at the same time.
Identification

5. Damage
• Adult and larvae of Red Flour
Beetles feed on grain dust and
broken kernels, but not on whole
undamaged kernels.
• Both larvae and adult are distructive.
• The adult lay eggs in the grain when
the larva hatches the start feeding
on the grains bores into and excrete
feacal materials.

6. Management and
control Detection methods
Cultural control
Physical control
Biological control
Control atmosphere

7. Detection Methods
Red flour beetles can be difficult to
detect at low densities. Simple traps
baited with food such as carob beans,
ground nuts and cereals can help detect
individuals when their numbers are low.
At higher densities holes and tunnels in
grains and seeds can be seen as can
the adults and larvae as well the dust
created by their feeding activities. The
eggs that stick to storage containers
can be detected and there may be a
pungent odour at high densities.

8. Cultural control

9. Physical Control
The removal of adult insects
and larvae from the grain by sieving
can reduce populations but this is very
labour-intensive. The addition of inert
dusts such as ash and clay to the grain
can reduce insect numbers by causing
the insects to die from desiccation.

10. Biological control
• The red flour beetle is affected by a
variety of parasites, parasitoids and
predators that affect it at all stages.
• Parasitic wasps of grains,
Predaceous mites, Indianmeal
moth,Trichogramma pretiosum etc
are natural enemies.

11. Control Atmosphere
• Where suitable infrastructure exists,
low oxygen and carbon dioxide-
enriched atmospheres can be used
to control stored product pests.
• Freezing for several days and
heating for 24 hours have proved to
be effective control methods for
stored product pests.

12. So these were the environment friendly
control strategies for Red flour Beetle...
•Thanks