Materials Required

• Few infected/spoiled grains/seeds of wheat, rice, and pulses (chickpea)
• Three plastic containers with lids
• Hand lens
• Micro-slides
• Brush
• Forceps

Procedure

Real lab Procedure

• Collect three different kinds of spoiled grains (contaminated) such as rice, wheat, and chickpea.
• Take a handful of spoiled grains and put it in a separate container and labelled as A, B and C.
• Carefully observe the smell of the grains, any holes present on the grains.
• Observe the presence of any powdery substances on the bottom of the container (or) any thread like appearance over the container.
• Observe the presence of any insects or worms in the container.
• If the insects/worms are present note the colour, shape and structure of the insects or worms.
• Break the holes of the spoiled grain and observe the presence of any organism.
• Draw the structure of the observed insects/worms in a notebook.
• Observe that all the grains or infected or only a few are infected.
• Take the forceps or use the brush to pick up and take the insect/organism carefully.
• Place the insect/organism on the water slide.
• Take hand lens and observe the insect/organism through hand lens.
• After observing tightly close all the containers and leave it for few days and do the same procedure again.

Simulator Procedure

• Drag and drop spoiled rice grains in Container A and click on the glass lid to close the container A.
• Drag and drop wheat grains into Container B and click on the second glass lid to close container B.
• Drag and drop chickpea grains into Container C and click on the third glass lid to close the container C. 
• Click on the Next button.
• To rotate the container A, click on it. Again, click on container A to zoom the grains inside the container.
• Click on the zoomed image. 
• Repeat the above steps for both Containers B and C respectively. 
• Click on the Notepad button. 
• Shows Next button. 
• Drag and drop the forceps to container A to take one pest and place it on the water slide.
• Click on the hand lens to zoom the pest in water slide.
• Repeat the above 2 steps for both container B and C respectively. 
• Click on the Reset button to redo the experiment.

Observation

The grains may be spoiled by insects and organisms. It may pore the holes and digest the grains. Due to the presence of the insect pest the grains reduced as a powdery substance that means the insects were affected and spoiled the whole grain into a powdery form to digest it.

Conclusion

The insect pests are continuously affecting the stored grains whenever the possibilities are available for spoiling the grains. Different types of insects were attacked and spoiled the grains in different stages. The seeds were affected by microorganisms that leads to give the bad odour.