Pea Weevil
Bruchus pisorum
A small, chunky beetle whose grub develops hidden inside a developing pea, eating out the seed. The adults nibble blossoms and leaf edges, but the real damage is done out of sight within the pods, often discovered only when peas are shelled or saved for seed.
🔎 How to spot it
The adult is a stout, mottled brown-and-gray snout beetle about a fifth of an inch, often flecked with white, that plays dead and drops when disturbed. Inside an infested pea you find a single plump, legless, pale grub with a small brown head, or the round exit hole and hollowed seed it leaves behind. Notched blossoms and leaf margins hint at the adults.
🥀 Damage it causes
Females lay eggs on young pods, and the hatching grubs bore through the pod wall into the developing peas, each grub hollowing out one or more seeds as it feeds. The result is wormy, hollowed peas with exit holes, ruined for eating and badly reduced in quality and germination if saved for seed. There is one generation a year, on peas.
🛡️ Prevent it
Where pea weevil is established, plant as early as the season allows so pods fill before the overwintered beetles are most active, and clean up and destroy pea vines and pod debris promptly after harvest. Do not save seed from an infested crop, and rotate the planting away from where peas grew the previous year.
🧯 If it is already here
The grubs are sealed inside the peas, so sprays during pod fill rarely help in a garden; the practical controls are sanitation and seed handling. If you save pea seed, kill any hidden weevils by freezing the dried seed for several days or sealing it airtight before storage. Remove and destroy infested vines so beetles do not carry over.
💡 Good to know
Because the damage happens inside the pod, an infestation is easy to miss until shelling reveals the holes, so a history of wormy peas is the cue to tighten timing and sanitation. The pea weevil breeds only on peas and has just one generation a year, which makes rotation and clean fall cleanup especially effective.
🌱 Plants it attacks
9 plants in the library can be attacked by this pest
For educational and informational purposes only. Pest control advice is general guidance drawn from university cooperative extension sources; always identify a pest positively and read and follow the label on any product before use, especially around food crops, children, and pets.