The Role of Biorationals in the Control of a Bean Bruchid

A bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) is among the most common crops grown for food security in Uganda and the entire world. Despite this significant role played by the beans in people's diet and economy, the beans can not be stored for long after harvest due to damage by storage pests. As such, beans cannot be available through out the year. It is envisaged that if these pests were controlled, the beans would be available for use as food through out the year. Also farmers would store them for long after harvest thus attracting good prices for their produce. The bean bruchid (Acanthoscelides obtectus Say) is one of the major storage pests that disturb beans in store and cause big and considerable losses. This research was aimed at finding out the most effective biorational that farmers can use to avoid the bruchids in the stored beans and more over biorationals are locally available, cheap and environmentally friendly. In this study biorationals (Tephrosia vogelii, Tagetes minuta, and cow dung ash) tested against Malathion 2% dust with the aim of determining their efficacy on bean bruchids.