Cereal-crop-protection
Guides
Contarinia sorghicola
sorghum midge
Contarinia sorghicola, the sorghum midge, is a gall midge and one of the most damaging insect pests of grain and forage sorghum. Adults are small, fragile, orange-red flies with yellow heads, brown antennae and legs, and gray membranous wings. Females lay eggs in flowering sorghum spikelets; larvae feed on developing ovaries, preventing kernel formation and causing empty glumes. The species has a global distribution across tropical and subtropical regions where sorghum is cultivated.