I was doing my usual room check. Noticed a seedling with a little helmet head going on, so I helped remove the shell.
There are a bunch of little bugs in the shell of the seed and on the seedling itself.
They kind of look like little beetles to my old eyes.
Any help would be appreciated.
It looks like a fungus beetle, but it’s too blurry/not enough clarity to tell. Try to isolate one on a flat white piece of paper and get a zoomed in shot. Try to include the head and if possible, the underside for a better identification.
I’ll watch this thread for a better image but in the meantime, where in the world are you located, and where did your soil come from? The bug likely came from dormant eggs in the soil just waiting for moisture.
Please try to get a better photo. The number of legs and what the head looks like up close is especially important to be able to tell.
Promix hp for soil
Is it possible for these bugs to have been in the seed itself?
It’s not impossible, but unlikely. Many small bugs, such as fungus beetles feed on, you guess it, fungus, and have a keen sense for where it is. In a moist environment, seeds rely of fungus to propagate, and they could very easily have scouted the germinating seed out. It is also where all the enzymes (protein) is, for plant-eating bugs.
I will try to get some better photos with the usb microscope.
It might be tomorrow though. The usb scope is a usb-c cable and the only phone I have with usb-c is currently at 4% charge and being charged.
Fungus beetles, by the way, are not a specific type of insect, but a group of them of different sizes and species. That was just a random guess, which is about all I can give for now.
I hope I can help figure out what they are, as finding out what they are will tell you a lot about where they came from and how to prevent them. I am usually pretty good at researching obscure garden pests, so I’ll keep an eye out. Take your time, and good luck!
Seed weevil also known as bean weevils may be the critter, but it is hard to tell.
Results
There was a wide variation in the ability of different insects to produce offspring on hemp seed. The number of offspring produced was significantly affected by dockage level, but not by moisture content (Table 3). Both L. serricorne and O. surinamensis thrived on hemp seed and produced 40 to 126 offspring after 9 weeks under various conditions (Table 4). Trogoderma variabile, T. castaneum, C. ferrugineus, S. paniceum and T. confusum produced modest amounts of offspring varying from 8 to 47 in
Discussion
Of the ten beetles tested, L. serricorne, O. surinamensis, T. variabile, and T. castaneum were able to produce more offspring than the parental population on the hemp seed treatment with dockage. This was also the case in the dockage-free seed treatment, except for T. variabile offspring production, which dropped below the original parental population. Lasioderma serricorne and S. paniceum and have an extremely wide array of foods that they are capable of infesting (Howe, 1957; Ashworth, 1993;
Search for those insects listed from the study linked above. “stored product pests” could be a helpful search term.
It’s still hard to tell what it is, not being able to see the underside, and quite blurry. Questions I have:
My best guesses, given the size so far are:
Nice work @resimax !!! I hope it’s Beatles easier to deal with. Cheers !!!
I friggin hate those things. I don’t get them in my plants, but I find them in my basement all over the place in the spring the last couple of years (I live in a furnished basement). They are absolutely tiny. And they fly and land on anything soft made out of fabric they can lay eggs in. They are also attracted to light, and can be seen crawling up walls towards ceiling lights in numbers. Their larvae when hatched are what eat fibers to pupate.
I have seen a couple over the years in my garden. They were on plastic, etc. not really on the plant. Not sure if they actually caused any damage As the times I seen them We’re only one at a time. And walking around the garden, but not necessarily on the plant. As always, you’re a wealth of knowledge @resimax. Cheers everyone!!!
I’m hoping it’s a mite to be honest. Soil mites are a really good thing. They eat decaying plant matter and improve the soil. Mites get a bad rap because of the spider mites.
The word Mite Gives a lot of PTSD lol… I’ll follow along I like to learn with all of you guys. Cheers!!!
I will say that pro mix does seem to have a lot of spider mite eggs in some batches. These don’t look like those though. I would water with H2O2 to kill any eggs in the soil, and use mosquito bits or pure bacillus thuringiensis ssp. israelensis (Bti) to kill any small larvae before replanting. A lot of insect eggs can lay dormant for months until the moisture and temperature is just right (like fungus gnats). Drying out the soil for a sane amount of time will only kill existing hatched larvae.
I have not observed them flying or trying to to fly.
I count eight legs.
Here is the underside.
I have it stuck to a piece of duct tape.
Well that certainly narrows it down. It’s not a beetle, or any insect for that matter.
I must admit, I’m completely puzzled by this one. It looks like a tick, but I can’t be sure.
That photo looks like 6 legs and two antennae showing. I think it is a beetle.
Have a look and compare.
I’d have to agree with @buzzmobile as the most likely pest, some kind of bean weavil.
There are over 1,600 different species, making it difficult to identify, do not look like normal weevils with a snout, and are usually very small.
Their eggs lay dormant in dried, harvested seeds, waiting to be sowed and hatched, which answers your question @Uprangewilly – they probably did come from the seed.
I’d send the pictures and description to wherever you got your seeds from, and maybe they can get you some replacements.
Nice work @buzzmobile!
