Dr. Gobinda Chandra Biswas
Principal Scientific Officer
Vertebrate Pest Division, BARI, Gazipur
Md. Shah Alam
Senior Scientific Officer
Vertebrate Pest Division, BARI, Gazipur
Vertebrate Pest status and their damage severity were studied at the field crops and stores of different divisions and the campus of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute, Gazipur, during 2012-2013. Groundnut, wheat, kaon and maize seeds were found to damage at germinating stage by crows, pigeon, martin, bulbul etc. and these crops were found to damage by parakeet at the maturity stages. Considerable rat damage (about 10%) was recorded in the wheat fields at the grains filling stage and potato field at the tuber formation stage. Jackfruits were found to damage by a number of crows at the ripen stage in this campus. Besides these, considerable amount of stores and laboratory goods were observed to damage by the rat’s amount. A number of jackal and dogs were also found to damage in vegetable plots. They damaged the crops by digging the soil.
Vertebrate pests, status, damage severity,research field store, BARI, campus
BARI Research field, Gazipur
Pest Management
i) Documentation of vertebrate pest status at BARI campus
ii) To assess the damage severity caused by vertebrate pests at BARI campus
The study was conducted in the research fields, BARI campus and storage of the different crop research centers and other divisions of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), Gazipur during October 2012 to June 2013. Various kinds of vertebrate pests like rodent, squirrels, birds, jackals, their incidence, nature and extent of damage were recorded. The name of different species with numbers were also recorded and reported. The rat species were collected with the help of different types of live traps. The bird species were recorded in different crops by visual observation. Crop damage by vertebrate pests was estimated at vegetative, grain filling and maturity stages of the crop. Crop damage was estimated from the randomly selected per unit area and active burrow count method. In case of bird documentation, different bird species were recorded by visual observation method at germinating and maturity stages of the crop. The observations were made during 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM during the day.
Annual Report, VPD, BARI
Thirty thousand
In the wheat field in Agronomy Division of BARI a total of 20 rat burrows were found in 40 m x 30 m area. Among these, 10-12 burrows were observed as active burrows at the grain filling stage of the crop. It was also observed that the maximum number of burrows were located in the middle of the plot where the crops were densely populated. They were suggested to apply zinc phosphide bait in to the active burrows for controlling field rats.
In Oilseed Research Centre of BARI different bait materials were tested in live traps for trapping rats. USA made live traps were set with four different bait materials such as biscuit, dry fish, bread (Paruty) and ripen banana. A total of 40 rats were trapped in live traps in the laboratory. Among the bait materials, 18 rats were trapped in dry fish baited trap followed by bread (10 rats), biscuits (7) and banana baited trap (5), respectively.
In groundnut field at sowing to germinating stage of the crops, a good number of house crows were found in crop fields and they damaged the germinating groundnut by pulling, digging and uprooting and eating them. The birds damaged germinating nuts with their stout long beaks. The damage was occurred in the morning and afternoon. They also ate the mature nut at the maturity stage. The bird boy could not scare a large number of crows in the fields.
In Potato field of Tuber Crops Research Centre of BARI Joydebpur, total 20 rat burrows were recorded in the 30m X 15m net house potato field during February/13 at the tuber formation stage of the crop. Among these, 10-12 burrows were found active in crop field. The rats damaged the roots of the potato crop. The rats also damaged the young tubers by eating and also carrying them into the burrow. Jackfruits at the BARI campus, Gazipur were also damaged by crows. They generally damaged matured jackfruits. The crows peeled the fruits by their long stout beak and ate the pulp of jackfruits. The damage was occurred from the morning to afternoon. About 10-15 number of crows damaged up to 5-8 ripen jackfruits in a single tree. About 10-15% jackfruit was damaged by the crows at BARI campus, Gazipur.
Report/Proceedings