UAE wages war on deadly beetle

Dubai: The UAE agricultural sector is declaring war on the red palm weevil, the deadliest enemy of the date palm, which is threatening crop security for the high-glucose fruit.

The large beetle-like insects are capable of taking down date palms by boring into them and laying their eggs within the bark.

The hatching larvae eat through the interior of the trunk, weakening it making it susceptible to wind destruction.

The Ministry of Environment and Water officially announced a three-year, Dh30-million, nationwide campaign yesterday to control red palm weevil (RPW), considered the most dangerous.

Rashid Ahmad Bin Fahd, Minister of Environment and Water, said the success of the campaign depends on its synchronised implementation across all farms and cooperation of all farmers.

The campaign will go on until 2011 and maintenance will be carried out by government technical teams.

Productivity

Farmers have been demanding such a campaign to help combat the pest and to maintain productivity, said Dr Sami Al Awad, an expert in pest management at the Ministry of Environment and Water.

"The pest itself attacks the tree and if it is untreated it will completely destroy the tree. The tree will collapse and the farmer will have lost it. If you keep in mind that it takes three to five years for a date palm to reach maturity to produce dates — it is a big loss," said Al Awad.

"One infected tree could transfer the infestation to seven trees per year. So you can imagine the damage," he added.

By the ministry's calculation around 5 per cent of the 20 million trees in the UAE are infected with red palm weevils.

"The problem is mostly hidden because you cannot spot the infestation. You will see a healthy tree and when you notice it is sick, it will be too late to treat or reverse," he said.

"Some farmers might be willing and will have been doing all the requirements to minimise the weevils but if their neighbour is not, they will just keep coming and coming. A universal campaign should be more successful."

Difficult

About 200,000 traps will be deployed in farms to catch the pest. Pheromone traps will attract the weevils and light traps will attract the oryctes beetle, which makes holes in the tree trunks that provide entry points for the weevils.

"The worst pest is the red palm weevil. The control is difficult; it needs a lot of money and attention. All the traps will be given to the farmers and hopefully in three years they will be better educated. Farmers know their role."

According to Antonius van Haarten, a Sharjah-based entomologist, whose research discovered several of new species in the UAE, said the date palm weevil first emerged in Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the Arabian Peninsula.

The pest in the past

The red palm weevil, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus, invaded the Gulf states in the mid-1980s, and has caused havoc with date plantations since.

The beetle-like weevil is widely found in southern Asia and Melanesia where it is a well known threat to coconut plantations as well as date palms.

The weevil has expanded its range westwards very rapidly.

The pest was recorded for the first time in the United Arab Emirates in 1986, Saudi Arabia in 1987 and in Iran in 1992. It crossed the Red Sea into North Africa and by 1995 it had infested over 10,000 farms across Arabia.

In infested plantations, yields have been estimated to have dropped from 10 tonnes to 0.7 tonnes per hectare, according to the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).

Eradication

Several integrated pest management (IPMs) methods to combat weevils will be rolled out in all farms across the UAE.

To maintain healthy date gardens, dead or damaged trees that have an advanced form of the disease will be cut down, ground up and made into fertiliser. Roots and remnants will also be removed. Irrigation tanks will be cleaned.

New plants should be planted 8 metres apart in modern farms and must be treated before being planted. One pheromone trap should be set for every 100 trees and should be maintained every 30 to 40 days.

Damaged trees with burrows created by the weevil should be treated with pesticide and fumigated.

According to FAO, current efforts in the Gulf and Asia are largely based on insecticide applications despite deep concerns about environmental pollution.

Timeline: Move to wipe out weevils

20/03/2005: The Northern Region Agriculture and Fisheries Department hands out hundred of traps to UAE farmers to catch red weevils

9/08/2004: The Northern Region Department of Agriculture and Fisheries says Bio-chemical substances such as pheromones will be used in the third phase of fighting the red weevil that will last for 2 years

17/06/03: The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries decides to register a patent in the name of the UAE on the development of a local fungus that has proved effective in killing red palm weevil.

13/03/2003: The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries says a total of 77,500 weevils have been captured up until December 2002 using 3,000 traps. This was part of the national project to curb the menace

7/06/2002: Large numbers of the red palm weevil caught with the help of special traps prepared by the Homraniya Bio-Chemical Agricultural Research Centre

25/07/2001: A national technical committee is set up in the Ras Al Khaimah branch of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries to carry out campaigns against the red palm weevil.

A total  of 40,000 red palm weevils killed since the beginning of the year. The operation was carried out by the Ras Al Khaimah-based Al Homraniya Agricultural Bio Control Research Unit .

29/05/2001: Thousands of red weevils captured in traps prepared by the Homraniya Bio-Chemical Agricultural Research Centre in Ras Al Khaimah. The aim was to capture as many male red weevils as possible, poison them, and then release them to poison the females and offspring

18/03/2001: The Eastern Agricultural District is all set to battle the red palm weevil with the help of a new technique that involves infecting the male weevil with a locally-produced fungus, which in turn infects others

5/01/2001: A fungus that is believed to be a natural killer of the pest is discovered at the Al Himraniya Project of Integrated Bio-control of the red weevil is revealed.

29/12/2000: Pheromone traps used to control the red palm weevil have been found to be the best method of dealing with the pest since it has formed a strong immunity to chemical pesticides.

Studies conducted by the Arab Agricultural Development Organisation showed that the chemical pesticides used to control the red palm weevil have eradicated pests hostile to the weevil, which has itself become immune to pesticides.

05/03/2000: The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries sets up a technical committee to help fight the red weevil which has become a major threat to a national legacy -the date palm.

07/02/2000: The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries introduces Acecap capsules in its Integrated Pest Management (IPM) to fight the dreaded palm tree red weevil

19/10/1999: The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries issues two new publications on dangerous crop-destroying pests and proper methods of controlling them to help farmers to find ways to control pests.

07/11/1997: Several experiments to rid date palms of the red-palm weevil begins to show positive results. When some 'treated' date palms were checked after a week, it was found that the systemic poisoning of the plant by root injection had proved successful in driving out the adult insects. This particular experiment is based on the 'root feeding' method of using a combination of three pesticides

08/12/1992: Dubai Municipality's Agriculture Section, in coordination with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, sprays pesticides in 30 farms as part of the first phase of a campaign against the 'red weevil'. In addition, the section also sprays 15,055 palm trees and is now in the second phase of plans which include the spraying of a number of farms

03/02/1992: Dubai Municipality calls on all farmers to join efforts for the national campaign against the red palm weevil. Medhat Shareef, head of the Agriculture and General Parks Department at Dubai Municipality, says the municipality has set up a special telephone line to deal with any complaints in this regard.

1985:  The Red Weevils infestation is first discovered in date palm trees in Ras Al Khaimah