Integrated pest management of leaf-eating caterpillars of oil palms in Sabah
1996
Teh, Chong Lay (BAL Plantations Sdn. Bhd., Tawau, Sabah (Malaysia))
Among the leaf-eating caterpillars, the bagworms (Family Psychidae) and nettle caterpillars (Family Limacodidae) are the most common defoliators in oil palm plantations in Sabah. Species that have occured at least once in outbreak proportions in the past 35 years include the bagworms Mahasenacorbetti Tams, Pteroma pendula Joannis and Metisa plana Walker, and the nettle caterpillars Setothosea asigna van Eecke, Setora nitens Walker and Darna trima Moore. Although oil palm is an introduced crop, the pests attacking it are indigenous to Sabah. As such, they have well-developed natural enemy complexes that have evolved together with them. Major pest outbreaks were a common sight in the 1960s-1970s. As large areas of cocoa are converted to oil palms, the oil palm belts has somehow merged and become contiguous. There is hence an even greater potential for pest outbreaks to spread from one area to another. All pest outbreaks occur when there is an imbalance in the ecological system, mainly due to unhealthy cultural practices and intensive spraying with contact-action insecticide, both from the air and from the ground. The remedy comes only when a more integrated pest control approach is adopted. This includes a combination of several factors: a comprehensive surveillance system, cultural practices such as the conservation of certain nectariferous plants/planting of legumes in the field, timely use of predators, parasitoids and pathogens and the judicious use of certain insecticides.
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