[Study of the nutritive value of grain proteins using Tribolium confusum larvae]

A study was made of the nutrition of Tribolium confusum larvae with the purpose of using them as test-organism for determination of the nutritive value of grain proteins. It was demonstrated that there is a good agreement between the content of lysine in the grain diets containing barley and corn and average daily weight gains among the insects: r = +0,85 and r = +0,75, respectively. It was noted that during nutrition with grain diets containing different levels of proteins, the growth of the insects depended on the protein quality. Experiments on the insects fed diets prepared from different anatomical parts of the grain demonstrated a high nutritive value of germ proteins. Comparative experiments performed with the diets from barley demonstrated a good agreement between average daily weight gains of rats and insect larvae (r = +0.9). The data obtained indicate that the test-organism under consideration can be used for evaluating the nutritive value of grain proteins.