Plant Protection (Scientific Journal of Agriculture)

Plant Protection (Scientific Journal of Agriculture)

Population fluctuations of the red palm weevil, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus Olivier in date palm orchards in southern Kerman

Document Type : Short communication-ٍEnglish

Authors
M. Pahlavan Yali 1
P. Namvar 2
1 Associate Professor, Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran
2 Assistant Professor, Plant Protection Research Department, South Kerman Agricultural and Natural Resources Research and Education Center, AREEO, Jiroft, Iran
10.22055/ppr.2025.49357.1803
Abstract
The red palm weevil, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus Olivier is one of the key pests of date palm trees worldwide, and its severe damage can lead to the death of the trees. In the present study, the population fluctuations of the adults of this pest were studied in date palm orchards of Anbarabad County, Kerman Province, using aggregation pheromone traps. Weekly sampling was conducted from March 2023 to March 2024. Furthermore, the effect of temperature, as an abiotic factor, on the population fluctuations of the pest was investigated. Based on the results, the first red palm weevil adults in the studied area were attracted to the traps in late March, and the pest population increased gradually to reach its peak in June, July, and August. During the samplings, the number of adult females attracted to the pheromone traps was 2.26 times higher than those of adult males. No adult insects were attracted to the traps from the third week of October to the third week of February. However, the pest activity resumed in March. During the active period of the pest, a significant positive correlation was found between temperature and population fluctuations. Any temperature rise was accompanied by an increase in the number of adult insects attracted to the pheromone traps. In conclusion, the results of this study provided important information about R. ferrugineus, including its appearance date in the environment, its activity and inactivity period, and population trends. This information could be valuable for developing integrated pest management strategies in date palm orchards of Kerman Province.
Keywords
pheromone trap
temperature changes
population peak
date palm tree
Integrated Pest Management
Subjects
References
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 © 2025 by the authors. Licensee SCU, Ahvaz, Iran. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0 license) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
Plant Protection (Scientific Journal of Agriculture)
Volume 48, Issue 3
Autumn 2025
Pages 17-25