Status and Management of Three Major Insect Pests of Coconut in the Tropics and Subtropics 371
Management
Mechanical and cultural tools
The management of the RB includes destroying
breeding sites and collection and destruction of
bio-stages of the beetle from the manure heaps or
pits. When applying organic manure to the palms,
it should be covered with thick (> 0.15 m) soil
layer or applied as a thin layer (< 0.1 m). Other
possibilities are: regular examination of seed-
lings and removing the beetle physically using a
metal hook; application of repellents like neem
seed cake or powder 150 g with sand (1:2), or
Carbofuran 3G 40 g with sand (1:1), Naphthalene
balls (10.5 g) covered with fine sand at 45-day in-
tervals, pongamia seed cake with sand (1:2) and
filled with Sevidol 8G (25 g with 200 g fine sand)
thrice in April, September, and December into
the bases of the three innermost leaf petiole gaps
between stem and leaf petiole; spraying 0.01 %
Carbaryl (50WP) in breeding sites; application
of used engine oil at the basal area of leaf peti-
oles (CPCRI 2012 ; Jayanth et al. 2009 ; Fernando
pers com). Phorate (10 %) granules is reported to
give protection for up to 60 days when applied
at 5 g/palm. Application of naphthalene balls in
the leaf axil at the base of spindle leaf at 12 g/
palm provides good protection against the pest in
Malaysia and India. This treatment gives 45–60
days protection to the palm. Application of oil
cakes of neem ( Azadirachta indica A. Juss.,
Meliaceae) or marotti ( Hydnocarpus wightiana
Bl., Bixaceae) in powder form at 250 g mixed
with equal volume of sand, thrice a year to the
base of the spindle leaf of the coconut palm is
an effective prophylactic method against the RB
(Chandrika Mohan 2005 ).
Biological Control
Under biological control, mainly two biological
agents were used: entomopathogenic fungus and
the Oryctes virus. For the management of im-
mature stages entomopathogenic fungi, Metarhi-
zium anisopliae, were used. They were of two
types: long or short spored, with the long-spored
( M. anisopliae var. major) varieties isolated from
Oryctes spp. being more virulent (Ramle et al.
1999 ). Malaysian isolates killed all third instar
larvae after 14 days (Ramle et al. 1999 , 2006 ).
The infective ability of a strain may become re-
duced by culturing on media but restored consid-
erably following the infection of a host (Fargues
et al. 1983 ). M. anisopliae infection is most fre-
quent when rainfall and humidity are high; the
spores should be applied to breeding sites or can
be practiced preparing artificial breeding sites
and applying fungus as a biopesticide. The fun-
gus can be mass-produced on the broken maize
seed grains and methods of mass-producing and
on-farm production techniques have been devel-
oped and reported from Asian Pacific countries.
Fresh spores or dry spores with mycelium or as a
powder formulations were used and incorporated
into the breeding ground (Dangar et al. 1991 ;
Ramle et al. 2007 ; Subaharan 2004 ; Tey 1995 ).
Use of Oryctes rhinoceros Nudivirus (OrNV)
is a key factor to control in areas where the pest
is nonendemic. Virus inoculum mixed with sugar
solution and it inoculated by pouring to the mouth
of adult beetle or allowing adult beetle to swim
the solution for infection. Infected beetles were
released to field for spreading the virus among the
population. The virus virulence of different geo-
graphical genomic isolates is different, and their
efficacy varied from place to place (Crawford
et al. 1986 ). Hence, the dosages of virions admin-
istered varied. With this caveat in mind, an isolate
from Leyte Island, Philippines caused more larval
mortality than did isolates from other locations in
the country or from Samoa (Zelazny 1979 ). On
the Malay Peninsula, the isolate Ma07, extracted
from adult midguts from the west coast, caused
higher mortality in larvae and adults and was
deemed more virulent than the widespread iso-
late PV505 from the Philippines; the isolate from
Sabah caused the lowest mortality (Ramle et al.
2005 ). In some areas like the Andaman Islands
(Jacob 1996 ), the Minicoy Island (Mohan and Pil-
lai 1993 ), the Maldive Islands (Zelazny et al. 1992 ;
Zelazny et al. 1990 ), and Oman (Kinawy 2004 ),
after introducing OrNV, the RB damage subse-
quently cut down significantly. The OrNV is ef-
fectively used in Malaysia, India, the Philippines,
and Samoa to reduce the damage (Babjan et al.
1995 1996; Ramle et al. 2005 ; Zelazny and Alfiler
1991 ; Marschall and JIoane 1982 ).