Stored Food Pests

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Stored Food Pests

• Modified from
• urbanprinciples.ifas.ufl.edu/stored food pests.ppt

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Stored food pests

• 80 of human food comes from grains
• 12 of harvest is lost to insects before harvest
• another 36 is lost after harvest to insects
• overall total food losses due to pests are about
  50 destruction

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Two Pest Categories

• Primary Cause initial injury
• Secondary Take advantage of injury.

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Types of losses due to pests

• Direct
• Indirect

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Direct losses

• Actual consumption
• loss of weight,
• loss of nutrients,
• lower germination,
• reduced grade
• lower market value
• Contamination
• Damage to structures or containers

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Indirect losses

• wet grain heating
• bacteria
• fungi
• alflatoxins
• parasites of humans
• control and application costs
• excessive pesticide residues
• loss of consumer confidence

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Food contamination

• Insect infestation results in grain damage that
  cannot be repaired
• Food defect action levels set FDA standards for
  insect contamination
• Food exceeding those levels cannot be mixed with
  un-infested food to reduce levels of
  contamination
• Food processors can be fined or sent to jail for
  infestations found during inspections

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Food Defect Action Levels

• Apple Butter
• Insect Filth Ave. of 5 or more whole or
  equivalent insects (not counting mites, aphids,
  thrips, or scale insects) per 100 g of apple
  butter
• Rodent Filth Ave. of 4 or more rodent hairs per
  100 g sample
• Significance Aesthetic

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Food Action Defect Levels

• Cherries, fresh, canned or frozen
• Insect Filth
• Avg. of 4 or more pieces are rejects due to
  insects other than maggots
• Wheat Flour
• Insect Filth Ave of 75 or more insect fragments
  per 50 g

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Management of Stored Food Pests
Objective Prevent contamination from causing
rejection

• Monitor Pest Population
• Control through non-chemical means if possible
• Use Chemicals as a last resort (they can cause
  rejection too).

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Inspection and monitoring

• Survey areas where insect pests can enter
  facility
• Windows and doors should be tight to prevent
  entry when closed
• Vegetation (fruit and nut trees) can cause pests
  to proliferate close to the building
• Weeds can provide harborage

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Monitoring

• Light traps
• commonly used to trap flies,
• can be used to monitor flying stored product
  insects also
• Probe traps-- inserted into infested commodity to
  trap insects

Flanders, K
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Pheromone Trap
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Trapping

• Traps for all but flour beetles should be placed
  about 6 feet up. Flour beetle traps should be
  placed level on floor or shelves
• Place traps in grid pattern 25-50 feet apart
• Do not place close to windows and doors to
  prevent luring insects into facility
• Pinpoint problem areas, then visually inspect to
  find infestation
• Routinely service to replace attractants and
  clean or change sticky traps
• Lures are effective for two months after this
  they should be replaced with new ones.

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Information from Trapping

• Monitoringnew introductions, isolate current
  problems
• Looking at setae on back of a beetle, can
  determine food it was in.

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Other Rules of Thumb

• A warehouse may be 1 million cubic feet
• Trap placement
• 1/30,000 ft3 (average)
• 1/10,000 ft3 (critical)
• 1/100,000 (non-critical)

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Monitoring

• Sex pheromone produced by
• Various Moths
• Anobiid beetles
• Dermestid beetles
• Sources
• Insects Limited
• Trece
• Whitmire

• Moth volatile

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Monitoring

• Aggregation pheromone
• produced by many flour beetles and grain beetles.
  
• Both males and females respond to the lures

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Indian meal moth pheromones

• adults up to 13 mm,
• bicolored wings, inner half light colored, outer
  half coppery
• feeds on almost any stored food but especially is
  found in stored nuts, grain, dried fruit, and pet
  food
• traps contain hangers, traps, lures, and sticky
  paper

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Red and confused flour beetle pheromone

• adults up to 4.4 mm, dark reddish and somewhat
  flattened
• feed on flours, cereals, debris, cocoa, fruits,
  and vegetable products
• traps contain traps, oil dispensers, oil pads,
  and lures

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Cigarette beetles

• adults up to 5 mm, brown to reddish with the head
  tucked under pronotum
• attacks most stored food including tobacco
• hanging traps have hangers, traps, lures
• floor traps have stations and lures

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Sawtoothed grain beetle

• adults up to 3.25 mm, elongated and flattened,
  toothlike projections on side of pronotum
• enter many sealed containers
• same trap as flour beetle trap but with
  sawtoothed grain beetle attractant

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Angoumois grain moth

• adult wingspan up to 19 mm pale yellow forewings
  and gray pointed hindwings
• attacks whole grains
• hanging trap includes traps, hangers, and lures

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(No Transcript)
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The trick to traps . . .

• Wheres the plume?
• Things that influence the pheromone plume
• Air handling system
• HVAC, positive pressure
• High use during summer and winter
• Sends pheromone up and out of building if hung
  too high
• But if you hang the trap too low, the
  distribution of the pheromone will be poor and
  affect trap catch

/lancaster.unl.edu
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IPM Management Tactics

• Non-chemical control
• Sanitation
• Physical
• Cultural
• Many of the non-chemical control methods are
  PREVENTATIVE
• Biological Control ?

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IPM Management Tactics

• Judicious use of insecticides
• Examples of treatment plans, associated
  application equipment, formulations available and
  some products

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Common Facilities with Stored Product Pests

• Warehouses
• Stores
• Homes
• Bins will be covered in the lab

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General Principles for an IPM Program

• Inspect incoming material (prevention) is the
  first line of defense against most stored product
  insects.

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Inspect rail cars and trucks for spilled food and
infestations
www.bulkwest.com
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Flour in bags examine seams of bags check
surface of bags, look under a few bags, look for
holes in bags, check pallet
http//www.fsa.usda.gov/daco/pdd/eob/bhous35.jpg
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Inspection of incoming materials

• Look for trails in dust to determine presence of
  insects
• Boxes of grain products
• check surface of transportation vehicle and dust
  residues,
• remove inner pack,
• check box and bottom of box,
• check pallets

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• Inspect material before putting inside kitchen
  pantry
• Check cereal boxes, flour bags, or any grain
  containing food

/www.artisanspecialties.com
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General Principles for an IPM Program

• Inspect incoming material
• First in, first out

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First In, First Out
www.olsensgrain.com
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Pet Stores
Bags of pet food are common sources of
infestation.
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Pet Stores
Pigs ear chew toy--dermestids www.dog-gonegoodies
.com
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Grocery Stores

• SPP can start infestation in food products, but
  become a problem in paper goods (packaging) where
  they can pupate.

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General Principles for an IPM Program

• Inspect incoming material
• First in, first out
• Sanitation

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Sanitation

• Spilled food
• Flour dust
• Trash containers
• Broken packaging
• Equipment cleaning

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Sanitation

• Its one thing to clean out a kitchen pantry
• Discard infested items
• Vacuum
• Wipe shelves down with warm soapy water

pages.ivillage.com
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Sanitation?
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Sanitation?
http//www.worldgrain.com/graphic/bulk.gif
www.bulkwest.com
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Non-chemical controls

• Cold
• Heat
• Packaging
• Mechanical destruction

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Cold

• Low temperature of product can retard or kill
  stored product pests
• Grain storage silos usually have aeration
  equipment to pull cold air into grain in winter
  to kill or slow development of grain pests
• Storing susceptible materials in refrigerator
  will slow or kill pests
• Packages placed in refrigerator will kill most
  stored products pests if the cold penetrates to
  all areas of the package (4 days for a 5 lb bag
  of flour)

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Heat

• Processing plants are often heated to 120-150oF
  for 24 hours
• Infested food can be placed in oven at 150oF for
  20 minutes
• Infrared and microwaves are often used to kill
  pests in processing

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Packaging

• Packaging can keep products free of insects
• Newly hatched larvae can penetrate cracks 0.12 mm
  wide
• Waxed paper and cardboard can be penetrated by
  stored products pests
• 75 of infestation occurs at folds and corners of
  a carton
• Foil laminates can prevent most insect
  infestation
• Glass jars and metal drums are virtually insect
  proof

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Mechanical destruction

• High rpm (2,900 rpm) will kill insects and mites
• Milling and other processing equipment can
  mechanically destroy insect pests

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Entoleter Impact milling equipment
http//www.entoleter.com/
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Chemical control

• Much changed with loss of MeBr
• Contact treatments -- Ultralow volume (ULV) or
  Ultralow dosage (ULD) applications of pyrethrins
  or pyrethroids
• Fogs, mists, and aerosols cannot penetrate food
  to kill insects
• They kill exposed stages and can be used
  regularly to prevent infestations in the facility
  from attacking products
• Protectant insecticides
• Placed in cracks and crevices where insects rest.

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Protectants

• Inorganic dusts (diatomaceous earth) sometimes
  used to protect seeds and grains from insects
• Malathion--
• has been registered for application to all major
  grains and has been used since 1958.
• EPA tolerance is 8 ppm
• in recent years most of the common pest species
  have developed resistance to malathion
• Not widely used

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Protectants

• Chlorpyrifos-methyl (Reldan),
• Banned in 2003
• Pirimiphos-methyl (Actellic)-- expanded
  registrations for stored grain insects
• Not widely used
• Spinosad
• Registered for stored grain use in Jan. 2005.
• Effective against all major insect pests.
• Like Bt, it is a bacterial by-product so is
  considered natural and can thus be used on
  grain for any target market (including organic).

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Protectants

• Hydroprene (Gentrol)-- can be fogged and sprayed
  for control of stored products pests
• Gentrol Point Source
• Methoprene (Diacon II, Wellmark and DeGesch)
• Bacillus thuringiensis (Dipel)-- exempt from
  tolerance regulations. Can be applied as a
  surface treatment for control of lepidopteran
  pests

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Fumigants

• Used to kill insects in raw and packaged food
• Leave very little residue

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ProFume is replacing Methyl Bromide

• 2005 MeBr production/importation banned
• ProFume major player now.
• Dow AgroSciences
• Sulfuryl Fluoride old product, used for
  structural pest control for many years (Vikane)
• Disrupts the glycolosis and citric acid cycles,
  works in 24-48 h
• Cost similar to MeBr

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Phostoxin, Gastoxin, or Magtoxin

• Can be used to kill insects in all kinds of
  grain, including seeds because phosphine has no
  effect on germination
• At 68oF, fumigation time is 3 days, at 40-53oF
  recommended time of fumigation is 10 days
  therefore treated areas must be very gastight

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Fumigation procedure for stored products pests

• Sealing
• similar to structural fumigation, but usually the
  infested product is placed on a concrete slab and
  covered with a tarp held in place with sand
  snakes or tape
• Plastic tarp and tape is minimum required
• Placards must be placed before start of
  fumigation and must contain name of fumigant,
  date of release, name and phone of applicator
• If area around the fumigation is occupied,
  monitoring within 10 ft of the fumigated area is
  required and levels recorded

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Fumigation procedure for stored products pests

• Release of the fumigant
• 2 person teams responsible for release of
  fumigant.
• Full face respirators with proper canisters or
  SCBA equipment must be available before release
  of fumigant

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Fumigation procedure for stored products pests

• Aeration
• A method of ventilation of the fumigated area
  must have been established before release of
  fumigant
• SCBA must be used in concentrations above 15 ppm
• full face respirators with yellow cannister with
  olive stripe are used for 0.3-15 ppm
• no protection is required below 0.3 ppm
• Anyone entering a fumigated area where
  concentrations are unknown must where SCBA

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Fumigation procedure for stored products pests

• Monitoring
• Usually Draeger tubes and a hand pump are used to
  monitor levels of fumigant.
• One pump will draw a specific amount of air
  through the tube
• Color change in the reactive material in the tube
  indicates air levels

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