Occurrence of Stored Grain Insect Pests in Traditional Underground Pit Grain Storages of Eastern Ethiopia

Abstract

Grain samples were collected from 179 on-farm traditional underground pit stores found in agro pastoralist villages. The samples were collected from four district namely Babille, Gurusm, Jigjiga and Awbarre districts of Ethiopian Somali provenance. The study was conducted to assess the occurrence and damage related to storage insect pests in traditional grain pit stores. Data on relative abundance, insect grain damage and germination percentage for each district were summarized and subjected to descriptive statistics analysis and mean and standard deviation were performed. According to the result, all assessed grain stores exhibited with significant infestation with storage insect pests. Over all finding indicted that maize weevil (S zeamais), angoumois grain moth (S cerealella) with mean relative abundance of 41.25 and 28.52% respectively others including flour beetle (T castenum), flat grain beetles (C ferugineus) and Saw-toothed grain beetle (O surinamensis) were also commonly recorded in all assessed districts. Maximum grain damage in sorghum was recorded from Awbarre district 29.27%. The highest grain damage in maize was recorded in Babile (33.88%), Gursum 32.47% and Jigjiga 30.86%. Sorghum and maize grain stored for at least 8-9 month showed mean germination percentage of 72.81% and 66.96% respectively. Keywords: Stored grain insect pests underground pit storage system