Peanut Burrower Bug Pressure in Virginia-Type Peanuts: What North Carolina Growers Are Seeing in 2025
Peanut burrower bug is a sporadic pest of peanut, but it seems to be becoming more common in North Carolina. This insect spends most of its life underground. It uses needle-like mouthparts to feed through the peanut shell and into the developing seed. While this feeding can reduce kernel size and weight, the biggest problem is peanut quality. Unfortunately, growers usually do not see this damage until the peanuts are graded.
This year, about 22 tons of Virginia-type peanuts were graded as Seg. 2. While this damage is likely not all caused by peanut burrower bug, there is a good chance that most of it is.
Thanks to funding from the NC Ag Foundation, an MS student began work on this pest in 2025. At this time, there are no economic thresholds, meaning we do not know how many bugs cause yield or quality losses. There are also no sampling methods to help growers know when the insect is present, and no known effective insecticides that are currently registered for control. However, previous studies suggest that moldboard plowing may reduce peanut burrower bug numbers and damage when compared to reduced tillage practices.
The MS student worked with a grower on an on-farm trial with three tillage treatments:
- No-till and bed
- Disc and bed
- Moldboard plow and bed
She monitored peanut burrower bug activity using pitfall traps. These are cups that are placed in the soil with the rim level with the soil surface and filled with liquid. When peanut burrower bugs move across the soil surface, they fall into the cups and are trapped, allowing her to count them later.
She found several interesting results this year. First, peanut burrower bugs were more active on the soil surface in late July and were less active in June and early July. Second, she found more peanut burrower bugs in the disc-and-bed treatment compared to both the no-till-and-bed and the moldboard-plow-and-bed treatments. This was not what we expected, as we thought no-till would have the highest numbers. This means we need to study this more before drawing firm conclusions.
We plan to repeat this study in 2026 to learn more about this pest and to better understand how tillage affects peanut burrower bug activity and damage.
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