Hi,
We have been fighting a losing battle with rhino beetle in our coconut plants of 2 years. We have tried every trick in the book but we catch at least 2 everyday. We are concerned that once the trees grow we won,t be able to observe the axils and the damage could be irreversible. So need suggestions as to how we could track these bettles electronically. If we could locate their breeding ground we might be able to eliminate the site and bring this to an end.
Any suggestions on where we can procure tagging devices with trackers for insects are welcome.
Sri oh fount of knowledge, thank you. Also to all who have posted suggestions. As suggested by Sri, here is background.
We have 108 plants which are 2 years old - most seriously affected and now at a stage where we won,t be able to look into the acils as they are almost 8-10 ft. Next we have 42 plants which are 18 months old - the beetles are found in these too. The last lot of 100 are just 8 months old and starting to attract the beetles. We noticed the first attack when the plants were about 6 months old.
Immediately we mixed fine river sand with thimet and poured down the axils.
We set up 6 pheromone lures per acre. This reduced the count from 5-6 a day to about 3.
Next we fermented castor seeds and along with the solution placed them in sunken pots all over the field. They worked but only reducing the count of beetles but not eliminating them.
We used naphatlene balls.
Along with this we have been pouring a mixture of 1 liter of monocrotophos + blue copper every month for over 18 months now. We have also replaced mono with lambdacyhalothrin. We found this more effective than mono.
We have hung bags of thimet in fine cloth around the axils.
I hope to have covered all the tricks by now. Everyday 2 staff go scout with long needles around each tree and pierce the beetle out. Surprisingly they are of uniform size of about 5 cm. Wonder where is the rest of the crowd ?
As said before the 2 year old plants are going out of reach now and we fear there is nothing we can do to stop this relentless attack until we find the source of these beetles.
To clarify - there are no FYM or vermi compost yards nearby.
I went thru the links and I think the red palm weevil is different from rhinoceros beetle in looks.the only bit of new info I gathered is to use marotti oil cake with sand.
But i would still like to know how we can get and fix tracking devices on these little guys
am facing same problem with rhino beetle
i did all the tricks you have mentioned and i also tried phorate,neem oil,
pheromone traps were great failure(please suggest some good brands with their price)
these F&*@#G beetles are like rigging machines spoil years of efforts in minutes
some one said theres some injection given to the plants , so i went to horticulture and they were very
happy to laugh at me.
Yes. There is one option you did not try is using natural predetor and bio control.
There is one insect I have forgotten the name, in Krishidarshan they frequently show. it is called nephenditis or sounds like this. You can leave 10 insects per tree. I will try to findout the name of this insect and availability.