Meligethes aeneus

Scientific Name: Meligethes aeneus
Type of pest: Pests of cabbage plants
Order: — Coleoptera
Family:  — Nitidulidae

Beetle is widespread everywhere. It damages the seeds of vegetable and oilseed cabbage crops. Occasionally, on legume flowers, beet plants, on fruit and other plants.
Beetle size 1.5 - 2.7 mm with flat, oblong body, black with green metallic shine, mustaches with three-pointed mace, short legs, black-and-white.
Egg size 0,3 mm, white, smooth, elongated-oval. Larva - up to 4 mm, a worm, with three pairs of legs, pale gray, covered with small black warts, head of a boom. Doll - 3 mm, loose, flattened, slightly red, pale-yellow.
Imago winter out on the surface of the soil under light leaves or plant residues on the edge of the forest, in gardens, parks.
In April - early May, beetles are settled on flowers of wild plants, later moved to cabbage crops (cabbage, rape, etc.).
Additionally, they feed on the inner parts of buds, flowers, tufts of pollen, stamens, pistils and petals. Damaged buds fall off, with weak damage, void pods with low yields and quality of seeds are formed. The female lays eggs by 1 - 2 in the buds that are not dissolved and in the flower.
Fertility - 50 - 60 eggs. The larvae are hatched after 5 - 9 days and feed on the internal parts of buds and flowers, mainly by the pests, sometimes with young pods.
The development of larvae lasts 15 - 25 days. Having completed the development, the larvae deepen into the surface layer of the soil at 2 - 5 cm, where they are plotted.
Dolls develop 10 - 12 days. Imago, which appear in June - July, for some time feed on flowers of various plants, and then fly to wintering places.
One generation develops throughout the year. Reduces the number of imago flowerots Aneuclis insidens Thoms., On the larvae parasitize Phradis interstitialis Thones, Ph. morionellus Holmgr. (Hymenoptera: Icheumonidae) and Diospilus capito Nees. (Hymenoptera: Braconidae).

Protection measures. Soil cultivation during the period of mass pest control. Spraying plants in the phase of budding with insecticides Mospylan, Fastak, Confidor, Bi-58 with more than 5 beetles per plant.