| Summary: | Legumes are a rich source of valuable nutrients thus represent important component in human and animal nutrition.
The most important and often a limiting factor in legume production is the presence of seed pests, such as the bean
weevil Acanthoscelides obtectus (Say, 1831). This work tested the suitability of three different legume species (common
bean, faba bean and grass pea), the species with a growing interest in the human diet, for the development of the bean
weevil, aiming to provide a reliable forecast of its population growth. After four months, been weevils consumed the
highest percentage of the common bean kernels (70.79%), followed by the grass pea (53.13%), and faba bean (0.42%).
The progeny production and population growth were significantly affected by the tested legume species. After each
month, the total number of adults was the highest on the common bean, indicating its best suitability for the weevil’s
development. Based on the number of the emerged specimens after each month of the observation, the bean weevil
development was unhampered and continuous also on the grass pea. The lowest number of emerged adults, in all
observation periods, was in faba bean, indicating its low preference and suitability for the weevil’s development. The
population growth of the bean weevil was the highest on the common bean, followed by grass pea, and it fitted best to
the quadratic equation model that enabled the prediction of the population growth of the bean weevil for each legume
species in the next generations.
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