Lima Bean Pod Borer

(Etiella zinckenella), a moth of the family Pyralidodea. The lima bean pod borer has a wingspread of 20–26 mm, with front wings that are yellow-gray or brown-gray and hind wings that are light gray. The moth is encountered in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America; in the USSR it is found in the southern forest steppe, the steppe zones, the southern Kazakh SSR, Middle Asia, and the Far East. It damages legumes, particularly peas and soybeans. There are two or three generations of moths per year, with sometimes as many as 600 eggs laid on plants. The caterpillars bore into pods and eat the beans completely or partially. They pupate in the soil. Preventive measures include planting grain legumes no closer than 1 km from acacia plantings from which the moth could fly to the fields, early sowing, treating the plantings with insecticides, rapid threshing of the crop, and early, deep autumn plowing.