grub in rose seeds

General Discussion
1

Can anybody tell me which pest it is, that develops as grub in rose seeds. I found repeatedly grubs in rose seeds when opening them.

Thanks

Werner

2

It might be the rose seed chalcid.

Link: ento.psu.edu/extension/factsheets/rose-seed-megastigmus

3

Margit Schowalter found some larvae in her seeds last year and let one pupate. Here’s the photo she sent me. It might be the rose megastigmus, although we’re not sure.

4

I also found these snail like tiny, tiny slugs on my rose seeds. They are dark in color and smalller than the size of the head of a straight pin. I accidently opened a seed when cleaning it and there was a very small black worm incased in the embryo and it had a green head that looked doubled, similiar to a hammerhead sharks’ head, that is the only thing I can compare it too. I don’t know if these worms are from these slugs or not, but when I take the slugs off the seeds they leave a small indentation on it as though they are trying to eat through the seed. I am trying to take a pic of these slugs but I don’t think my camera can take closeups of something so tiny. I’m going to work on this today.

5

If your camera can’t do a close up, do you have a scanner tied to your computer for copying documents?

Scan the critter at highest resolution. Sometimes the critters show up well that way.

6

Hi Ann,

Well I tried the scanner and I get a very blurry picture but I am going to keep trying anyway.

I did take a couple of pictures and it was the closest and clearest I could get. I don’t know what you can see from these but the slugs are black and very very small, they are like coffee grinds. Here are the pics.

7

This is almost the same as the first one…

8

Thank you for the information.

the larvae in the seeds however are definitely different from what Jeanie describes, since they are only found inside the seeds and you can not identfy the infestation from outside. No holes like in pictures above.

Werner

9

Last night I was potting rose seeds and in a plastic bag when I opened it to take out the germinating seedlings I found what seemed to be elongated small black flies. They must have hatched out of some of the rose seeds. It was in only one group of seeds. Hmm. They seemed to be the same sort of proportions as the fly above, but seemed darker.

David