LONGEVITY AND COMPARATIVE EFFICACY OF AGGREGATION PHEROMONE LURES AGAINST RED PALM WEEVIL, Rhynchaphorus ferrugineus (Olivier) (COLEOPTERA: CURCULIONIDAE)

Abstract

The red palm weevil, Rhynchophorns  ferrugineus (Olivier), the most serious pest of  coconut, Cocos nucifera L. infests palms of 3 to  20 years age. As the red paltn weevil is a  concealed tissue borer, it is very difficult to  detect early infestation for timely control  measures (Abraham et aI., 1998). Under such  situations, pheromone traps play an important  role in monitoring and detecting early infestation.  Kurian et al. (1984) successfully used coconut  log traps baited with toddy + yeast +  insecticide to attract and kill the adult weevils.  After the discovery of aggregation pheromone  ‘Ferrolure’ by Hallet et al. (1993), a bucket  trapping system was designed by Oehlshlager et  al. (1993a) containing pheromone, food bait,  yeast tablets and insecticide to capture red palm  weevil adults.