Pea moth

Damage

The caterpillars gnaw a hole in the valve of a young pod and get inside. First they mine the pod wall, then they eat the seeds, and they fill the inside of the pod with excrement and frass.

When to look

In spring and summer, grain legume crops are inspected periodically to detect the pea moth in time.

How to count

Moths are counted with a light trap, counting the number caught per day.

Agronomy

• Plough fields after peas deeply in autumn: the moths find it harder to emerge from their cocoons, and the pest population declines.
• Early harvesting and quick threshing of peas kill the caterpillars that have not yet left the pods.
• Plough up the places where peas were dried and threshed, and destroy the debris left after threshing, because very many caterpillars overwinter in it.
• Early-maturing varieties reduce damage to plants by the pea moth.
• Seed damaged by the pea moth and the pea weevil is unfit for sowing.
• Timely harvesting and quick threshing of grain legumes help destroy the caterpillars that have not yet left the pods.
• Destroying the debris and plant residues that build up where grain legumes are dried and threshed limits the number of caterpillars going into overwintering.
• Stubble cultivation and deep autumn ploughing of fields where annual grain legumes were grown destroy a large number of the caterpillars overwintering in the soil.

Biological control

Trichogramma is released twice, during the mass flight of the moth and its egg laying.

Yield loss

Each caterpillar destroys up to four seeds. Usually only one caterpillar feeds in a pod, very rarely two.

Overwintering

Caterpillars overwinter in cocoons.

Favourable conditions

With favourable overwintering conditions and moderately wet weather during moth flight and mass egg laying, a localised increase in numbers and harmfulness is possible.

Every fact rests on a quote from its source, and each quote was checked against the page it is printed on.

1. Зайцева І. А., «Сільськогосподарська ентомологія. Курс лекцій», навчальний посібник, 237 с. · Дніпровський державний аграрно-економічний університет, Дніпро, 2021 · p. 116, 119, 120
2. EPPO Global Database · European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization
3. Прогноз фітосанітарного стану агроценозів України та рекомендації щодо захисту рослин у 2025 році · Держпродспоживслужба, НААН, НАН · p. 72
4. Photos: Nigel Voaden, iNaturalist, CC BY 4.0 · Ben Sale from UK, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 · Arild Omberg, GBIF, CC BY 4.0