December 2020 - 10

Pepper weevil: Southern pest that can hitch a ride north
By Dean Peterson
VGN Correspondent
Pepper weevils are a devastating
pest in the Southern U.S., but larvae
concealed inside peppers shipped to
Northern markets can carry the pest
to Northern growers, too.
New Jersey has been the focal point
of the problem and has pepper weevil
outbreaks nearly every year - most of
them within a mile or two of processors.
" We're blessed with a number of
Adult pepper weevil, Anthonomus eugenii, on a blossom. Photo: Esteban R. Leyva/University of California
food processors here, " said Joseph
Ingerson-Mahar, senior program
coordinator in the Vegetable
Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
Program at Rutgers University. " We
have small communities in south
New Jersey and there are farms
right up to the community edge, "
Ingerson-Mahar said.
That's where the problem starts.
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JOSEPH INGERSON-MAHAR
" The adults are very small - so
tiny and so dark you can easily
miss them. They're hard to detect
and they're good hitchhikers, " said
Elizabeth Long, assistant professor
in Purdue University's Entomology
Department.
Dumping culls and processing
waste on fields can introduce pepper
weevils. Culls and processing waste
left uncovered in a nearby landfill can
be a source of pepper weevils. " The
weevils can come from anywhere
there is waste from a processing
plant, " Ingerson-Mahar said.
Adults can also ride to fields in
contaminated, produce bins. " If there
are weevils hanging around bins that
have been taken to the processor,
you can infest a field quite easily, "
Ingerson-Mahar said. " You can tell
Pepper weevils can fly - from
processors in the community to
growers' fields - and the pest can
move in other ways, too.
" They seem to have a penchant for
riding on vehicles, " Ingerson-Mahar
said. " You have a lot of farmers
interacting day to day - sharing
equipment or simply talking to each
other. There are agribusiness firms
and Extension staff checking on one
farm and then moving to another.
You have social services agencies
and food vendors going out to the
migrant camps. There's a lot of traffic
out there in the fields. "

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December 2020

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