| Management |
Activity |
Nursery stage
|
|
Common cultural practices:
• Select good mother palm for obtaing seedlings i.e. it must be of 20 years of age, yield more than 80 nuts/annum.
• Provide proper shade, irrigation & drainage.
• Rogue out diseased seedling.
• Employ locally made rat traps.
• Use resistant/tolerant varieties.
• Sow the ecological engineering plants.
• Removal and destruction of alternate host weeds.
|
| Weed |
• Hand weeding and timely mulching. |
| Nematodes |
Cultural control:
• Use of less susceptible, tolerant cultivars or hybrids of coconut and intercrops in infested areas.
• Avoid use of banana as a shade crop in coconut nurseries.
Biological control:
• Application of cow dung, FYM, oil cakes and green manure to the basins.
• Crotolaria juncea may be cultivated in the basin and interspaces and used as green manure.
• Incorporate leaves and tender stem of Crotolaria juncea, Pueraria javanica and Glyricidia maculata into the soil in Sep-Oct.
|
Pre-planting stage
|
|
Cultural control:
• Prepare proper pits.
• Timely planting should be done.
• Maintain proper spacing.
• Fill the pit with FYM, red earth and sand mixture.
|
| Weeds |
Cultural control:
• Prepare beds of 1-1.5 m width and of convenient length with 75 cm space between beds.
• In areas where drainage is poor, prepare raised beds (10-20 cm height)
• Select good mother palm i.e. must be of 20 years of age, yield more than 80 nuts/annum, etc
|
| Soil borne pathogens, wilt, nematodes and resting stages of insect pests |
Cultural control:
• Deep ploughing of fields during summer.
• Early sowing of the crop prevents it from nematode infestation
• Liming the soil to pH 6.0-7.0, as well as reducing nitrogen levels in the soil, significantly reduces wilt.
|
Growth stage
|
|
Common cultural practices:
• Provide timely irrigation, organic manure, fertilizer as per the recommended dose, drainage, weeding, mulching, inter culture etc.
Common mechanical practices:
• Set up light traps following the first rains in summer and monsoon period to attract and kill the adult beetles.
• Cut and burn disease affected portions of palms, buttons, wilted palms and dead palms.
Common biological practices:
• Conserve natural enemies through ecological engineering
• Augmentative release of natural enemies
|
| Nutrients |
• For coconut mite affected plants with 50 Kg FYM, 0.52 Kg N /acre, 2 Kg SSP/ 3.5 Kg MOP, 1 Kg gypsum & 50 g of Borax |
| Rhinoceros beetle and cock chafer beetle** |
Cultural control:
• Collect and destroy the various life stages of the beetle from the manure pits (breeding ground of the pest) whenever manure is lifted from the pits.
Mechanical control:
• During peak period of population build up, the adult beetle may be extracted from the palm crown using GI hooks.
• Install aggregation pheromone traps away from the main plantation.
• Set up pheromone trap for rhinoceros beetle @ 1 trap/100 ha by fixing it to the plant at 0.6 to 1 m height to trap and kill the beetles.
Biological control:
• Release of Baculovirus oryctes inoculated adult rhinoceros beetle @ 6 beetles/acre reduces the leaf and crown damage caused by this beetle.
• Soak castor cake at 1 Kg in 5 l of water in small mud pots and keep them in the coconut gardens to attract and kill the adults.
• Apply mixture of either neem seed powder + sand (1: 2) @ 150 g/palm or neem seed kernel powder + sand (1: 2) @ 150 g/palm in the base of the 3 inner most leaves in the crown.
|
| Bud rot |
Cultural control:
• Adopt proper spacing and avoid over-crowding in bud rot prone gardens.
Chemical control:
• Spray copper oxy chloride 50% WP @ 1 Kg in 300-400 l of water/acre on the crown of the neighboring palms as a prophylactic measure before the onset of monsoon.
|
| Leaf rot |
• Follow common cultural, mechanical and biological practices
Mechanical control:
• Remove the rotten portions from the spear and the two adjacent leaves.
|
Mature palm
|
| Rhinoceros beetle |
• Same as in growth stage |
| Coconut eriophyid mite |
Cultural control:
• Grow intercrop (sun hemp, four crops/year) and shelter belt with Casuarina all around the coconut garden to check further entry.
• Apply urea 1.3 Kg, super phosphate 2.0 Kg and muriate of potash 3.5 Kg/palm/year.
• Increased quantity is recommended to increase the plant resistance to the mite.
• Soil application of micro nutrients such as borax 50 g + gypsum 1.0 Kg + manganese sulphate 0.5 Kg/palm
Chemical control:
• Fenpyroximate 5%EC @ 10 ml/l (spray fluid volume as required)
|
| Red palm weevil |
Cultural control:
• Avoid the cutting of green leaves. If needed, they should be cut about 120 cm away from the stem in order to prevent successful inward movement of the grubs through the cut end.
Mechanical control:
• Set up pheromone trap for red palm weevil @ 1 trap/100 ha by fixing it to the plant at 0.6 to 1 m height to trap and kill the beetles.
• Coconut log traps: Setting up of attractant traps (mud pots) containing sugarcane molasses 2½ Kg or toddy 2½ l (or pineapple or sugarcane activated with yeast or molasses) + acetic acid 5 ml + yeast 5 g + longitudinally split tender coconut stem/ logs of green petiole of leaves of 30 numbers in one acre to trap adult red palm weevils in large numbers.
|
| Leaf eating caterpillar / black headed caterpillar |
• Follow common cultural, mechanical and biological practices.
Cultural control:
• As a prophylactic measure, the first affected leaves may be cut and burnt during the beginning of the summer season.
Chemical control
• Cut sharply at an angle and insert the root in the insecticidal solution containing monocrotophos 36% WSC @ 10 ml + water 10 ml in a 7 x 10 cm polythene bag.
|
| Coreid bug** |
• Follow common cultural, mechanical and biological practices.
Mechanical control:
• Set up light traps to trap and collect adult bug.
|
| Termites |
• Follow common cultural, mechanical and biological practices.
Cultural control:
• Copious irrigation and drenching nurseries or basin of transplanted seedlings.
Mechanical control:
• Digging the termitaria and destruction of the queen is the most important in termite management.
Biological control:
• Spray neem oil 5% (50 ml/l) once on the base and up to 2 m height of the trunk for effective control.
• Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) can be sprayed at the rate of 100 millionnematodes per acre, in termite infested fields OR
• EPN infected cadavers of Galleria/Corcyra larvae containing live infective juveniles (IJs)are implanted in soil at plant bases at the rate of four cadavers per plant during May/ June and/or September for termite control.
|
| Bud rot |
• Follow common cultural, mechanical and biological practices.
• Same as in growth stage
|
| Leaf rot |
• Follow common cultural, mechanical and biological practices.
• Same as in growth stage
|
| Stem bleeding |
Follow common cultural, mechanical and biological practices.
Cultural control:
• Along with 50 Kg organic manure, apply 5 Kg neem cake containing the antagonistic fungi, Trichoderma culture to the basin during September.
• Provide adequate irrigation during summer and drainage during rainy season along with recommended fertilizer.
Mechanical control:
• Destroy the chiselled materials by burning.
• Avoid any mechanical injury to trunk.
Biological control:
• Apply neem cake at the rate of 5 Kg/palm in the basin along with other organics.
|
Note: The pesticides dosages and spray fluid volumes are based on high volume sprayer.
** Pest of regional significance.
|
