THE BIOLOGY AND CONTROL OF OTIORRHYNCHUS CLAVIPES BONSD. (RHYN. COLEOP.), A PEST OF STRAWBERRIES

Otiorrkynchus clavipes Bonsd. is a serious pest of strawberries around Cheddar, Somerset. The weevils nibble the foliage, the larvae eat the roots of the plants, and burrow into the rootstock.
The beetles appear in two waves, pupating in the autumn and emerging en masse in the spring, or pupating in the late spring and summer and emerging in succession between mid-June and the end of August. Both sexes are found and can be distinguished by the posterior thoracic sterna, which are concave in males and convex in females. Mating is alternated with egg-laying and the beetles lay between 100 and 300 eggs per female. On emergence the beetles eat voraciously, and roughly one egg is laid for every 10 sq.mm. of leaf consumed. Both parthenogenetic and fertile eggs are laid and hatch in between 17 and 24 days.
The larvae burrow rapidly when hatched and can only penetrate soil spaces which will admit their head capsules. The distribution of head capsule widths in mixed populations of larvae of all ages shows there are five instars. While feeding, the larvae are clustered within the root range of the plants and find their way to their food from plant to plant, guided by the exudates from the strawberry roots. As the larvae grow older they descend in the soil and turn to white soft pupae in smooth earthen cells 6–8 in. below the plants.
Adult damage to foliage is unimportant but larval damage to roots is serious and has been largely responsible for restricting the effective life of the strawberry beds to at most 2 years. Although weevil attack can be avoided by growing the crop in a 1-year rotation, control is difficult owing to the intensive cropping, which creates the most suitable conditions for the spread of the infestations. The adults are killed with 10% DDT dust; and the larvae by DDT and BHC preparations poured on to the soil, at a pint per plant, or by DD injection. The limitations and possibilities of various methods of control are discussed.