Larger Grain Borer 2004 - 2023

The larger grain borer (Prostephanus truncatus), or LGB for short, is a beetle that attacks maize and dried cassava roots. LGB was introduced into Africa from meso-America in the late 1970s and since then has spread across the continent.

The Larger Grain Borer (Prostephanus truncatus) (3mm long in life)

When LGB attacks maize, the amount of weight loss is about double that associated with the conventional pests of maize. When calculating storage losses, APHLIS automatically estimates the weight losses due to the conventional storage pests. However, only when LGB is reported as a serious pest does the APHLIS calculator increases the losses, and when it does the storage weight loss is doubled.

The table below indicates the incidence of LGB infestation by country and by year. For each year the number of affected provinces is shown. In some years there will be no provinces affected, some years more, and some years less. This is expected as there are quite big variations between years in the severity of attack; this is believed to be related to climatic conditions at critical times in the year. In some cases there is no data available, this is indicated by a ‘-‘ in the table.

Number of affected provinces

Country	Number of Provinces
		Reported number of affected provinces
		2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023
Angola	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Benin	11	-	-	-	-	6	6	6	6	6	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Botswana	9	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Burkina Faso	13	-	-	-	-	8	8	8	8	8	8	9	8	8	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Burundi	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Cameroon	10	-	-	-	-	10	10	10	10	10	10	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Chad	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Cote d`Ivoire	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Democratic Republic of Congo	11	-	-	-	-	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Eritrea	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Ethiopia	11	-	-	-	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	10	10	-	-	-	-	-	-
Gambia	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Ghana	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Guinea	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Guinea-Bissau	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Kenya	8	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	7	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Lesotho	10	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Liberia	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Madagascar	22	-	-	-	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Malawi	3	-	-	-	-	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Mali	9	-	-	-	-	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Mauritania	12	-	-	-	-	0	0	0	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Mozambique	10	4	5	6	6	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Namibia	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Niger	8	-	-	-	-	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Nigeria	8	-	-	-	-	4	4	4	6	6	6	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Rwanda	6	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Senegal	14	-	-	-	-	0	0	0	0	0	14	14	14	14	14	-	-	-	-	-	-
Sierra Leone	4	0	0	2	4	4	2	0	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Somalia	5	-	-	-	-	0	4	5	5	5	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
South Africa	9	0	0	0	0	1	1	1	1	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
South Sudan	3	3	3	3	3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Sudan	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Swaziland	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Tanzania	26	26	26	26	26	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Togo	5	-	-	-	-	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Uganda	4	0	0	0	0	2	2	2	1	1	4	4	4	3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Zambia	3	0	0	1	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Zimbabwe	8	1	1	1	4	4	4	4	2	8	7	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Total	242	41	42	46	50	54	56	55	54	60	65	36	35	44	24	-	-	-	-	-	-

Larger Grain Borer: Is larger grain borer a problem?