Brazil recently began commercial cultivation of macadamia nuts, making it necessary to identify the insect pests attacking them in order to develop a pest management program. This study reports the occurrence of lepidopteran borers in macadamia fruits of orchards from the municipality of Jaboticabal, state of São Paulo, Brazil. Sampling was performed biweekly by visually searching for attacked fruits. The nuts collected had circular holes caused by lepidopteran larvae. The borers identified were Elaphria hypophaea (Hampson) (Noctuidae), Gymnandrosoma aurantianum (Lima) (Tortricidae), and Ectomyelois ceratoniae (Zeller) (Pyralidae), which occurred in the stages of fruit formation and growth, ripe fruits, and dropped fruits, respectively. This is the first record of E. hypophaea as a macadamia fruit borer worldwide, and the first record of G. aurantianum and E. ceratoniae as macadamia fruit borers in Brazil.
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30 September 2019
First Record of Lepidopteran Borers in Macadamia Nuts in Brazil
Sidnéia Terezinha Soares de Matos,
Terezinha Monteiro dos Santos-Cividanes,
Francisco Jorge Cividanes,
Laís da Conceição dos Santos,
Eduardo Suguino,
Alex Antônio Ribeiro
Florida Entomologist
Vol. 102 • No. 3
September 2019
Vol. 102 • No. 3
September 2019
damage
insect pest
lepidopteran larva
Macadamia integrifolia
Proteaceae