New Report of Oriental Mealybug Rhizoecus Amorphophalli Betrem (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae) in Amorphophallus Muelleri Tubers in Indonesia

Abstract

Since 2020 porang (Amorphophallus muelleri Blume) has been declared as an important commercial crop grown in Indonesia. Recently, porang tubers a coated of a distinct white waxy substance was observed at seed storage. The symptoms pose a threat to tuber vigour quality due to the intensive infestation on stored tubers. This sap- sucking insect sucks the juice leading to desiccation and shrivelling of tubers. This study aims to identify the sap- sucking insect pest attacks the storage porang tubers. The studies carried out at ILETRI. Identification of the caused insect species was done by observing symptoms visually, morphological identification of adult females using Compound microscope Olympus Bx43 in 40 X magnification, and tuber germination and growth of 250 infested tubers in the field. Regarding to the specific symptoms whose soft body coated of a distinct white waxy substance and morphological measurement of the average length of the adult females (862.62±46.3 μm with range between 764 - 904 μm), it’s supposed caused by mealybug in Rhizoecus amorphophalli (Hemiptera:Pseudococcidae). Our founding revealed that R. amorphophalli is first discovered as causal agent of a mealybug pest of porang in Indonesia and turned out to be very detrimental because their infestation caused 90 percent of infested porang tubers unable to germinate and grow.