Insect Pests of Fruit, Plantation, Medicinal & Aromatic Crops (2+1)

Management of oil palm pests

Cultural Methods

• Remove dead palm trunks and empty bunch heaps from the field and maintain good field sanitation.
• Hand picks the adults of rhinoceros beetle using iron hook.
• Collect and destroy all the various bio stages of the rhinoceros beetle from the manure pits.
• Set up light trap following the first rains in summer and monsoon period to attract the rhinoceros beetle and red palm weevil.
• Soak castor cake at 1 kg in 5 litres of water in small mud pots and keep them in the oil palm garden to attract and kill the adults of rhinoceros beetle.
• Keep the mud pots containing toddy, acetic acid, oil palm petioles and yeast to attract and kill the adult red palm weevil.
• Do not cut the green leaves of oil palm and cut them at 120 cm away from the base if it is needed.
• Avoid cuts and injuries on oil palm.
Biological Methods

• Release exotic predator reduvid bug, Platymeris laevicollis at 6 bugs per palm at regular intervals to reduce the population of rhinoceros beetle.
• Apply entomopathogenic fungus Metarrhiziwn anisopliae @ 5 x 10 spores 3 / m at the breeding site of the rhinocerous beetle.
• Release Oryctes baculovirus inoculated beetles in the oil palm plantation to minimize the pest incidence.
Chemical Methods

• Place 3-4 naphthalene balls in the youngest spear axils at weekly intervals to deter the rhinoceros beetle.
• Fill the crown and top most three-leaf axils with a mixture of carbaryl 10 D and fine sand (1:2 by volume) once in 3 months.
• Drench the manure pit with carbaryl 0.1 % solution once in three months.
• Follow root feeding of monocrotophos at 10ml + 10 ml water for 3 times at 3 weeks interval of time to control red palm weevil.
• Place 1 -2 phorate sachets (0.2g ai) in the axils of the new leaves to minimize the infestation of spindle bug.