The Effect of Pheromone, Kairomone And Food Bait on Attracting Adults Of Red Palm Weevil Rhynchophorus ferrugineus in the Sultanate of Oman in Date Palm Plantations

• Abdallah, F. F. (1) and S. A. Al-Khatri(2)
• (1) Plant Protection Research Institute, Agricultural Research Centre, Dokki, Giza, Egypt.
  Email: ffabdallah@hotmail.com
• (2) Plant Protection Research Centre, Rumais, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries,P.O. Box 50, P.C. 121, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman.
  Email: salim_alkhatri@hotmail.com
• The Third International Conference onIPM Role in Integrated Crop management and Impacts on Environment and Agricultural Products. 26-29 November 2005, Giza, Egypt.

Abstract

Field trials were conducted in date palm plantations of Mahdha in Al-Dhahira Region in the Sultanate of Oman to evaluate the weevil attracting potential of three different attractants which are ferrugineol based aggregation pheromone leur, kairomone (ethyl acetate, 95% purity) and food bait (1kg of fermented date fruits + 5L water). They were used to monitor and mass trap red palm weevil (RPW) Rhynchophorus ferrugineus Olivier. Results indicate that a combination of pheromone + kairomone + food bait recorded significantly high mean cumulative weevil capture with 58.7% of total capture of weevils in all trials. The lowest mean cumulative weevil capture was recorded by kairomone only with 0.6%. The study also revealed that all trials caught more females than males except kairomone + bait which caught more males than females.

In addition, another trial was conducted in date palm plantations of Buraimi in Al-Dhahira Region to compare three different kairomones applied in three different colour traps. The first kairomone was a commercial product from ChemTica International of Costa Rica, with a releasing rate of 200-400 mg/day, the second one was locally made from fermented date fruit using ethyl acetate with a releasing rate of 400-600 mg/day and the third one was an absolute ethyl acetate with a releasing rate of 400-600 mg/day. Kairomones were used in a trap consisting of plastic bucket of Red, Blue and Orange colours containing ferrugineol based aggregation pheromone leur and food bait. The results revealed that the commercial product was of a significantly high mean cumulative weevil capture. However, the commercial kairomone captured more RPW adults compared to ethyl acetate and locally produced kairomone. In addition, results revealed that trap colour has significant effect on attracting red palm weevil adults, where red and orange colour traps attracted significantly more adults than blue colour traps.