Effects of Brewer's spent grain (BSG) on larval growth of mealworms, Tenebrio molitor (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae)

Mealworms, Tenebrio molitor (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae), are widely used as food source for animal rearing as well as human diet. Conventionally, mealworms raised on wheat bran. In this study, we investigated the effects of brewer’s spent grain (BSG) on the growth of mealworm larvae to reduce the rearing cost. We prepared five different diets with various BSG content, 0, 10, 30, 50, and 70% of heated air dried BSG with wheat bran. We compared survivorship, larval weight, developmental duration, pupation rate, and pupal weight of five different groups of T. molitor raised on these five diets. The larval survivorships were almost similar with the control group except a group with 70% of BSG. For the larval weight, groups with 30% and 50% of BSG gained more weight than that with control treatment, 0% of BSG. For the developmental period, the groups with 30% of BSG took less time compared to the control group. In all treatment groups, more than 90% of pupation rate were observed. Especially, the group with 30% of BSG showed highest pupation rate among the five groups. Wheat bran with 30~50% of BSG was the optimal diet for successive insect rearing among the five diet treatments. Based on this study, we concluded that adding BSG to wheat bran helps to improve the quality of T. molitor and to reduce the rearing period.