Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) has developed and is popularising two gadgets for urban grain storage management.

As grains are stored in smaller quantities ranging fro 25 to 50 kg of rice and wheat in urban India and also get rice from the farm and store at home for consumption like rice and pulses in one to two bags. “In all cases insects cause damage to stored produce, which are common like red flour beetle, grain borer and saw toothed beetle,” a TNAU release said.

In storage, only a very few insects are seen in the early stage, hence if these small numbers are removed, there will not be any build up of insects during storage.

Insect Probe trap: The use of trap is relatively a new method of detecting, trapping insects in stored grains. The basic component of a TNAU probe trap consists of three important parts: A main tube, insect trapping tube and a detachable cone at the bottom.

Equispaced perforations of two mm diameter are made in the main tube. and concept was that insects love air and always move towards air and this behavior of the insect is exploited in this new technology.

The insect trap has to be kept in the grain like rice and wheat vertically with the white plastic cone downside.

Once the insect enters the hole it falls down into the detachable white cone at the bottom and blocking the way to escape and the insects are trapped forever.

The white detachable cone can be unscrewed once in a week to destroy insect.

Another gadget is “TNAU Insect remover” for bulk grain stored, used at urban households, where more than 100 to 150 kgs rice and pulses are kept.

The machine has the capacity of cleaning efficacy of 50 kg/hr and 200 kg/hr (1 HP motor) for hand and machine operated respectively and can crush the eggs present in the grains, when the grains flow through the machine to a considerable extent so that further insect development can be prevented.

Besides eggs, it also effectively removes the adult weevils/ beetles present in the grains and free living larvae of insects are also crushed.

While hand operated machine is priced at Rs.40,000, the power Operated one about Rs. 1. 75 lakh.