Pecan Weevil Can Be Bad

Weevil death rate in a 2 year cycle is 66.9-96 percent and for 3 years is 99.6 percent.  We lose a lot of pecan weevils before they ever get out of the ground.  Males feed on an average of .29 nuts per day while females feed on .23 nuts per day.  We always worry about the number of pecans damaged from feeding but that is very small compared to egg lay.  Males live on average 21 days while females live 23.8 days.  It takes 5 days from ground emergence for a female to start laying eggs.  Females lay eggs in an average of 22.7 nuts per female.  It doesn’t take too many weevils to mean a lot of damage.  For many commercial growers even one weevil is too many.  These early emerging weevils can be the most costly but the late weevils can end up in a sack of saleable pecans which is a real problem.