Evaluation of fruit and vegetable residues on nutritional indicators of barley beetle larvae, Zophobas morio (Fabricius, 1776) for farmed fish

Barley beetle or superworm Zophobas morio (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae), is an insect with various industrial uses, which has a special ability in the production of feed for poultry, aquatic animals and some pets. In this study, the effects of fruit and vegetable residues on the nutritional indices of 1200 superworm larvae was investigated for 4 weeks under temperature conditions of 27 ± 1 °C, relative humidity of 60 ± 5% and photoperiod of 12 hours of illumination. For this purpose, the treatments of banana skin, cucumber skin, watermelon rind, lettuce leaf and carrot pomace (10 grams per day) were considered. The results of the comparison of the nutritional indicators showed that the lowest and highest relative digestibility values were found on wheat bran (7%) and watermelon rind (97%) substrates, respectively. The highest values of the indices of conversion efficiency of ingested food and also digested food related to larvae fed with wheat bran + watermelon rind were 25 and 42%, respectively. In addition, the lowest values of these indices were observed on the substrate of watermelon skin (4.50% and 5.80%, respectively). The lowest value of the relative consumption index was observed on the substrate of wheat bran + cucumber skin (2.24) and the highest value was observed on the watermelon rind (22.25). In addition, the highest specific growth rate and weight gain (%) were obtained on wheat bran + carrot pomace and wheat bran + cucumber peel substrates, respectively (p<0.05). According to the results obtained, wheat bran + watermelon rind is introduced as a suitable substrate for the growth and feeding of this insect.