Physio chemical basis of resistance to pulse beetle in Greengram

The pulse beetle, family Bruchidae belonging to genus Callosobruchus is an interesting worldwide group, most abundant in tropics, whose larvae develop inside the seeds and mostly prefer the hosts that belong to the family Leguminosae. Pulse beetle lays its egg on ripe pods in field, but at harvesting time these pods are carried away to stores where they multiply on other seeds. It is a major pest of economically important leguminous grains. Preference/non-preference is employed by the plant to deter or reduce colonization by insects and it may be due to morphological (biophysical) and biochemical factors or combination of both. Bio-chemicals like amino acid, total soluble sugar, protein, phenol, tannin, etc. play an important role in host plant resistance to Callosobruchus species. Antibiosis operates after pulse beetle colonizes and have started utilizing the seed.