Tropentag, October 6 - 8, 2009 in Hamburg "Biophysical and Socio-economic Frame Conditions for the Sustainable Management of Natural Resources"

Using Radio Frequency to Control Red Flour Beetle (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) in Feed

¹Chiang Mai University, Department of Agronomy, Thailand
²Chiang Mai University, Postharvest Technology Research Institute, Thailand
³Chiang Mai University, Department of Entomology, Thailand
⁴Chiang Mai University, Department of Animal Science, Thailand
⁵Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Germany

Abstract

Radio frequency (RF) was used to control red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum (Herbst), which is an important pest in feed primarily on damaged grain, broken grain, and other cereal products including chicken feed pellets. In experiment I, a sample of 1 kg each out of 5 bags of chicken feed pellet were investigated. All stages of T. castaneum were found. Larval stage was the most abundant with 43.2±63.1 insects kg^-1, followed by egg, adult and pupal stages with 17.60±29.5, 8.40±11.0 and 5.80±8.1 insects kg^-1, respectively. In a second experiment, egg, larval, pupal and adult stages of T. castaneum were blended with chicken feed pellet and then exposed to RF with 27.12 MHz at 50°C for 3 minutes. Insect mortalities of egg, larval, pupal and adult stages were 81.98±3.8, 92.06±4.0, 72.99±3.3 and 91.58±1.7%, respectively.
The result showed that pupal stage was the most tolerant stage to RF-heat treatments. In experiment III, T. castaneum pupae blended with chicken feed pellets were exposed to combinations of RF: 4 different temperatures (50, 55, 60 and 70°C) and exposure for 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 min (20 combination experiment). The results showed that pupae completely died at 70°C already at the shortest time period of 1 min. Although the RF treatment at 60°C could not get completely control of T. castaneum pupae, the mortality rate of pupae between 60 and 70°C were not significant different. Feed analysis showed that the quality of the chicken feed was not affected by the RF treatments.

Keywords: Chicken feed pellet, chicken feed quality, radio frequency, red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum

Contact Address: Therdchai Vearasilp, Chiang Mai University, Department of Animal Science, 239 Huay Kaew Road, 50200 Chiang Mai, Thailand, e-mail: agitvrslchiangmai.ac.th