In the greenhouse, individual plants of soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merrill] were artificially infested with 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16 adults of Neomegalotomus parvus (Westwood), at the end of the pod-filling stage (R6) during 20 days to evaluate the effect of adult feeding on seed quality using the tetrazolium test. Results indicated that as the number of bugs/plant increased, the total damage to seeds also increased, reducing the percentage of seed vigor and seed viability. With 4 bugs/plant, 8.0 % of the seeds lost their viability; 8 and 16 bugs/plant reduced seed viability in 13.8 % and 22.0 %, respectively, with 16 bugs/plant reducing the seed vigor up to 40.0 %.
Insecta; Hemiptera; Alydidae; Glycine max; seed quality
