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Screening of Certain Chickpea Genotypes against Pulse Beetle, Callosobruchus chinensis (L.) under Laboratory Conditions

Bearer Legumes are among the richest food source of proteins and amino acids for human and animal nutrition. India is the largest producer, consumer and importer of pulses in the world. In India Pulses are grown in around 24-26 million hectares of area, producing 1719 million tonnes of pulses annually. India accounts for over one third of the total world area and over 20 per cent of total world production, primarily producing Bengal gram (chickpeas), Red gram (tur), Lentil (masur), Green gram (mung) and Black gram (urad).


Introduction
Bearer Legumes are among the richest food source of proteins and amino acids for human and animal nutrition. India is the largest producer, consumer and importer of pulses in the world. In India Pulses are grown in around 24-26 million hectares of area, producing 17-19 million tonnes of pulses annually. India accounts for over one third of the total world area and over 20 per cent of total world production, primarily producing Bengal gram (chickpeas), Red gram (tur), Lentil (masur), Green gram (mung) and Black gram (urad).
Chickpea is the third most important pulse crop, after dry bean and peas, produced in the world. It accounts for 20 per cent of the world pulse production. Majority of the pulses are susceptible to insect pests which is major constraint in the production, mainly because of improper management practices and unavailability of resistant genotypes to insect pests. Insect pests inflict severe losses both in the field and storage conditions (Mookherjee et al., 1970;Dias and Yadav, 1988).
Chickpea bruchid, Callosobruchus chinensis (L.) feeds on the chickpea and other peas. C. chinensis was declared as the major pest of chickpea, as it caused more than 10 per cent damage to it. During storage, high moisture content of grains (>12 %), high temperature (25-35°C) and relative humidity (>60%) make the environment very conducive for proliferation of insect pests (Adams, 1998). As a result, beetles develop rapidly and inflict substantial losses to grains. The grain characters, which also interfere the normal physiology or feeding of the insect, affects the biology of the pest adversely and these make a variety resistant to insect attack. Keeping these views in mind the present study was conducted to determine the resistance and susceptibility of certain chickpea genotypes under laboratory conditions.

Materials and Methods
A Laboratory experiment was conducted at the Insect Pest Management Laboratory, Department of Entomology, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi during 2016-2017 for the estimation of losses caused by pulse beetle in stored chickpea. The culture of pulse beetle was maintained on chickpea seeds at room temperature in the Insect Pest Management Laboratory. Chickpea was procured from local market at Varanasi, it was cleaned, washed, dried and then sterilized at temperature of 50ºC overnight to eliminate the hidden infestation.
The nucleus culture of C. chinensis was started by releasing 10 pairs of one day old adults in each glass jar (25cm × 15 cm × 10cm) containing 500 gram seeds for ovi position. After 48 hours adults were removed from the jars and discarded. The jars were covered with muslin cloth and tied up with rubber bands. These jars were kept at ambient condition in the laboratory. In order to get a continuous fresh supply of adults of C.chinensis for experimentation, culture was maintained at regular time intervals using the above rearing technique. During experimentation a pair of forceps, Camel hair brush and aspirator was invariably used for transferring insects in seeds ( Fig. 1 and 2).

Estimation of losses
The losses caused by the pulse beetle in stored chickpea were determined and the details of experiment are given as under. For estimation of the losses in different genotypes, 5 pairs of adults (males and females) were released in separate jars containing 500g chickpea seeds. The experiment was conducted in Completely Randomized Design (CRD) and replicated thrice. The observations given below were recorded at 30, 60, 90 and 120 days after release of adults of beetles.

Mean grain damage (%)
Sample of 100g chickpea seeds were taken from the jars of each replicate of every set after 30 days. The damaged seeds were separated out from the total number of seeds and taken for observation in each replication. Care was taken to avoid recount of damaged seeds. Suitable methods were adopted for observing the hidden infestation. The data taken was used for calculating the per cent seed damage. The same procedure was adopted for recording observations at 30, 60, 90 and 120 days after release of pulse beetle. The following formula was used for determination of per cent seed damage.

Mean weight loss (%)
After removing the beetles from each jar the weight of grains were taken separately on an electric balance from each replicate after 30, 60, 90 and 120 days of release. The mean per cent loss in weight was calculated by the following formula of (Dobie et.al., 1974).
Where, I = Initial weight of seeds F = Final weight of seeds

Per cent weight loss
The per cent weight loss in different genotypes after 30 days release of insects showed significant difference which varied between 2.28 to 37.71 per cent (

Per cent damage
The per cent damage in different genotypes after 30 days release of insects showed difference in their damage which varied from 5.00 to 14.00 per cent (  Patnaik and Samalo (1987), Khokhar and Singh (1987) who reported the seed infestation of pigeon pea genotypes by the bruchid in the range of 7.00 to 28.67 per cent, 5.16 per cent to 88.69 per cent, respectively.