Effectiveness of the egg parasitoid Trichogramma evanescens preventing rice moth from infesting stored bagged commodities

• Control of moths in bagged commodities is difficult because developmental stages of moths are protected by bagging material.
• Rice moths damage stored products in paper and jute bags causing food insecurity.
• Trichogramma evanescens parasitizes rice moth eggs on both paper and jute bags.
• 1000 parasitoids per week and bag ensures host finding irrespective of location of egg cards in the experimental chamber.
• Use of parasitoids could be a promising alternative for control of storage pests in bagged commodities.

Experiments were carried out in the laboratory with the aim of accessing the effectiveness and parasitism by Trichogramma evanescens to prevent Corcyra cephalonica from infesting rice in paper and jute bags. Eight small jute or paper bags filled with 5 kg of organic rice grains were prepared and the openings sealed. Sentinel egg cards were prepared with thirty fresh eggs of C. cephalonica glued onto small pieces of paper cardboard. Eight sentinel egg cards were introduced into a plastic box measuring 60 × 40 × 21 cm, i.e four cards on top surface of the bag and the box bottom, respectively. Approximately 500 adults of T. evanescens were released 10–30 cm away from the egg cards. The control boxes contained no parasitoids; there were five replicates for all treatments and controls. Two experimental conditions were tested, i) placing a single T. evanescens-release unit with sentinel egg cards placed every 3–4 days without any further replacement of the release unit for three weeks, ii) both new host eggs and T. evanescens release units were replaced every 3–4 days. Mean emergence of C. cephalonica was significantly (p > 0.001) suppressed by the release of T. evanescens. There was statistically no significant difference on the number of emerged moths on paper bag compared to jute bag. All sentinel egg patches were visited by T. evanescens. There was no correlation between the distance (10–30 cm) at which the sentinel egg cards were placed away from the T. evanescens release point and the number of parasitized C. cephalonica eggs. There was no decrease in parasitism over time. The results demonstrate that T. evanescens has the potential for host-location ability and parasitism of C. cephalonica both on paper and jute bags. This parasitoid could be a promising candidate for the biological control of moth pests in bagged stored products.