Callosobruchus Maculatus

Callosobruchus maculatus is viewed as an economically relevant pest for multiple pulses, including grains such as lentils, chickpeas, and cowpeas, black-eyed beans, or Vigna unguiculata. These grains serve as primary sources of protein those who live in tropical and subtropical Asia and Africa, and when C. maculatus lay eggs into grains, the grains can no longer be eaten or replanted (Owolabi et al., 2014), leading to quantitative and qualitative losses once the larvae insert eggs and droppings in the Vigna unguiculata (Torres et al., 2016 ) These larvae usually lay eggs on the surface of the beans or seeds field before or around the time of their harvest, which means that the eggs remain in the seed stores, where the eggs and total population
Thus, the need for alternatives to mainstream pest control is quite pressing. In reality, people have been using different materials as pest control against Callosobruchus maculatus for centuries. Ancient Egyptians in 1000 B.C., for instance, used ash dust as pest control for their stores of grain (M. Hafez, Nadia Z. Dimetry, and M. H. Abbass). More recently, essential oils have been considered effective pest control methods since they are comprised of volatile compounds and are not harmful to most mammals (G.K Ketoh et al.). While the effectiveness of essential oils has been tested, the effectiveness of sunflower oil specifically is uncertain and thus needs to be tested. The goals of this experiment are to determine whether sunflower seed oil will be effective in preventing the C. maculatus from laying eggs on the Vigna unguiculata. Based on the success of other essential oils, if the Vigna unguiculata are covered with concentrations of sunflower oil, then the C. maculatus will not be able to lay as many eggs on the beans as they would in the absence of sunflower oil. For the purpose of testing this hypothesis, the independent variable is the presence of sunflower oil, whereas the dependent variable is the number of eggs found on the beans after a period of
Five female C. maculatus and five male C. maculatus were taken from the Bean Beetle Cultures and added to three separate petri dishes. Next, the black-eyed beans for the experiment, Vigna unguiculata, which were obtained from Signature Kitchens of Better Living Brands, LLC, were counted and eventually added to the dishes. Some of the beans had already been treated with different concentrations of sunflower oil from Expeller Pressed Spectrum Organic Sunflower Oil from The Hain Celestial Group, INC. To differentiate which parts of the dishes contained which concentration of oil, they were labeled with four separate quadrants: A, B, C, and D. In each dish, quadrant A was filled with only 10 regular Vigna unguiculata that were not covered with any oil. Quadrant B was filled with 10 Vigna unguiculata covered with low concentrations, five milliliters per one kilogram, of the sunflower oil. Quadrant C, one of the experimental controls, was filled with no Vigna unguiculata. Quadrant D was filled with 10 Vigna unguiculata covered with high concentrations, ten milliliters per one kilogram, of sunflower oil. The petri dishes were then sealed and left out at room temperature for one week to allow the female C. maculatus to produce the eggs. This experiment included both a positive and negative control. Quadrant A, which contained regular