Arecanut Crop Stage-Wise IPM

Pre planting

Common cultural practices:

• Prepare proper pits.
• Timely planting should be done.
• Maintain proper spacing.
• A pit of size of 90 x 90 x 90 cm is preferred when the soils are deep and well drained. In heavy soils with added impedance to drainage, pit size of 60 x 60 x 60 cm is preferable.
• Pits should be filled with top soil, farm yard manure and sand. Fill the pit with FYM, red earth and sand mixture.
• Seedling should be planted at the center of the pit and put soil to cover up to the collar region of the seedling.

Cultural control:

• Banana can be raised as a shade crop in the interspaces during the initial years.
• Prepare beds of 1-1.5 m width and of convenient length with 75 cm space between beds.
• In areas where drainage is poor, prepare raised beds (10-20 cm height)

Nursery stage

Common cultural practices:

• Select fully ripen nuts for use as seeds.
• Select early early-bearing and high yielding varieties.Select planting sites with deep well-drained soil without high water trouble.
• Do deep ploughing or digging.
• Soil solarization by using transparent polyethylene sheets in nursery plots
• Select good mother palm i.e. must be of 20 years of age, yield more than 80 nuts/annum, etc

• Apply basal dose of well decomposed FYM or vermicompost @ 2 t/ acre treated with Trichoderma 2-3 weeks before planting seed nuts in sand bed nursery.
• Recyling biomass using areca materials
• Polythene bags (25x 15cm, 150 gauge) filled with potting mixture (top soil: farm yard manure: sand 7:3:2) can also be used to raise secondary nursery

• Periodical weeding and mulching with organic materials should be done.
• In nursery, weeds should be removed manually.

Seed and seedling stage

Common cultural practices:

• Sow seeds in the spacing of 5-6 cm cover the seed nuts with sand.
• Transplant sprouts 90 days old having two to three leaves in the secondary nursery at a spacing of 30×30 cm.
• Prepare secondary beds of 150 cm width of convenient length.
• Provide shade by growing banana or Coccinia indica by artificial pandal.
• Apply recommended dose of fertilizer or manure.
• Provide irrigation properly.

• Apply 12 Kg of green leaf and 12 Kg compost or farm yard manure per plant at the time of planting.
• A fertilizer dose of 100 g N, 40 g P₂O₅ and 140 g K₂O per palm per year is recommended. Terracing should be provided in undulated lands to prevent soil erosion

• Weeds should be removed from pits at the time of planting.
• Straw/ leaf mulches are provided after planting to suppress the weed growth around young seedlings.
• Cover crop and intercrop may be grown between the rows.

Vegetative stage

Common cultural practices:

• Collect and destroy crop debris
• Provide irrigation at critical stages of the crop.
• Avoid water logging.
• Regulate shade in thickly shaded areas.
• Enhance parasitic activity by avoiding chemical spray, when 1-2 larval parasitoids are observed.
• Remove and destroy collateral/alternate hosts such as castor, ginger, turmeric in the immediate vicinity.
• Maintain optimum plant density.
• Ensure adequate shade of 65-70% in endemic areas and irrigate the crop before attaining critical period.
• Fill gaps with healthy disease free materials.
• Mulching the plant basins with green leaves and other organic materials during summer months conserves and maintains the population of native beneficial microflora.

• Handpick the older larvae during early stages
• Collect and destroy plant parts infested with insect pest and diseases
• Handpick the gregarious caterpillars and the cocoons which are   found on stem and destroy them in kerosene mixed water.
• Use yellow sticky traps @ 4-5 trap/acre
• Use light trap @ 1/acre and operate between 6 pm and 10 pm
• Install pheromone traps @ 4-5/acre for monitoring adult moths activity (replace the lures with fresh lures after every 2-3 weeks)
• Erecting of bird perches @ 20/acre for encouraging predatory birds such as King crow, common mynah etc.
• Set up bonfire during evening hours at 7-8 pm

Common biological practices:

• Conserve natural enemies through ecological engineering Augmentative release of natural enemies

• For seedlings, 1/3 of the recommended dose of chemical fertilizers (100 g N, 40 g P₂O₅ and 140 g K₂O per palm) is sufficient during first year; 2/3 during the second year and full dose from third year onwards.
• Under rainfed conditions, 1/3 of the recommended dose in April-May and 2/3 in September-October should be applied. Under irrigated conditions, the April-May dose can be applied in February.
• During February or April-May, broadcast the fertilizer around the base of each palm after weeding and mix with the soil by light forking
• During September-October, open the basin to a radius of 75 to 100 cm and to a depth of 15-20 cm, apply the fertilizer and cover with dug soil.

• Timely hoeing & hand tool weeding should be done manually / mechanically during initial years.
• Soil should be loosened with light digging in October-November.
• Weeding is done twice or thrice a year by spade digging

• Common cultural, mechanical and biological practices
• Cultural control:

• Collect and destroy the heavily infested and drying leaves of young palm in the initial foci of colonization

• Common cultural, mechanical and biological practices

Biological control:

• Release Chilocorus nigritus periodically @ 4-5 beetles/palm
• Conserve predators such as coccinellid beetles (C. nigritus and C. circumdatus)

• Common cultural, mechanical and biological practices

Cultural control:

• Digging and forking of the soil before and after the monsoon will help in eliminating the various developmental stages of the beetle.

• Common cultural, mechanical and biological practices

Cultural control:

• Improve drainage.
• Avoid dense planting.
• Avoid flood irrigation and water flowing from infected palms to healthy palms.
• Avoid repeated ploughing and digging in the diseased gardens.
• Balanced manuring and fertilizer application.
• Cutting and burning of dead palms along with the bole and roots should be followed strictly.

• Common cultural, mechanical and biological practices

Mechanical control:

• Remove and destroy the diseased palms in the mildly affected areas to prevent the spread.

Cultural control:

• Biomass recycling and excess application of phosphorus 100g/palm

• Common cultural, mechanical and biological practices

Mechanical control:

• Mechanically remove left over/residual parts of the plant

Reproductive stage

• Apply deficient micronutrients if any based on soil test recommendations

• Intercultural operations should be done manually or mechanically from time to time to reduce the weed incidence.

Mechanical control:

• Remove and destroy the diseased palms in the mildly affected areas to prevent the spread.

• Common cultural, mechanical and biological practices

Cultural control:

• Deep summer ploughing to expose the immature stages for avian predation.

Mechanical control:

• Collection and destruction of beetles emerging from the soil during pre-monsoon showers in the evening hours
• Install light traps @ 1 trap/acre and operate between 6 pm and 10 pm

• Conserve and augment entomopathogenic nematodes such as Heterorhabditis spp. and Steinernema spp.
• Application of neem cake @ 2 Kg/palm/year at the base of the plant during June-July

Inflorescence stage

Inflorescence caterpillar

• Common cultural, mechanical and biological practices

Mechanical control:

• Affected spadices may be opened and if all the female flowers have been damaged the inflorescence should be removed and  burnt.

Mechanical control:

• Remove the fully affected inflorescence and destroy them to prevent spread.

Nut formation stage

Mechanical control:

• Collect all the infected nuts and other plant parts and destroy
• Cover the bunches with polybags

• Common cultural, mechanical and biological practices

Mechanical control:

• Remove and destroy the alternate hosts such as chillies, ladies finger, bitter gourd etc

Harvest and storage

• Common cultural, mechanical and biological practices

Mechanical control:

• Sun dry the fully ripened nuts by evenly spreading on ground or cement floor