- Anthonomus eugenii
- Image search from Google
- common pest in southern California, but often migrates up to areas with warm winters
- Adult is a small beetle (1/8″ long) with a dark body that looks brassy
- Larvae are off-white grubs with a brown head, 1/4″ at maturity
- Adult females lay their eggs in holes created in pepper buds or at the base of young fruit (peppers).
- Peppers are damaged when the larvae hatches and starts feeding inside the seed core or pepper walls; younger peppers will drop when infested, but the older, larger, peppers will stay on and allow the weevil population to grow, almost undetected
- Adult weevils also damage peppers by eating the fruit and leaf buds
- Peppers are their primary hosts, but they will eat all the nightshades (tomatoes, eggplant, etc)
- Control the pest by:
- crop rotation
- field sanitation (clearing last year’s debris, and any leaf or peppers that drop)
- remove nightshade weeds or volunteers from around your garden
- introducing parasitic wasps (only minimally controls pepper weevils)
The Plant Lady
