12: Nuttin' to see here: Insects in peanut shelling plants

Insectpopulations were examined at two commercial peanut shelling facilities located in the southeastern United States. Using pheromone/kairomone-baited dome traps and pheromone-baited flight traps, we showed that cigarette beetle and red/confused flour beetle were the most abundant captures across locations. Cigarette beetlemade up approximately 88% of all captures in dome traps across location.  While no cigarette beetle captures occurred during the winter months, red/confused flour beetles were captured year-round.  As expected, increasing temperature was a significant co-variate for increased captures across species and facilities. Significantly greater numbers of insects were captured in the processing portions than short erm storage and shipping.  Increased insect activity was most evident near the front of the plants where peanuts entered from long term storage, whereas fungus eating insects were more evenly distributed throughout all parts of the shelling plants. These data will be interpreted with an eye toward reducing minimizing infestations in processing plants.